Being distinct is critical, but being unique in a market of one comes with risks, as Ian explains.
It’s tempting to position your product or service as unique, and I suspect some aspects of it are; you have differentiated technology, approach, more features and functions, and solve the problem in a more elegant, simpler, quicker way than how it is solved by your potential buyer today.
It sounds innovative, but being too unique may mean you’re selling in a vacuum, alone, in a market of one, without the support of a market around you, like parking your ice-cream van on your own driveway instead of where people actually buy ice-cream.
In today’s noisy market, we are also encouraged to find our niche, and niching down is good, it clarifies who you serve and why you matter. But niche too far, and we’ve again created a market of one.
It’s the same with being distinct or differentiating in the market, another fine line to walk, you need to be distinct enough to be differentiated and stand out, but the same enough to be included in the buyer's perception of the market of solutions that can solve their problem.
If buyers can’t place you in that frame of reference, they can’t search for you, because they don’t know what words to use.
Without being in a market, nobody is searching for or finding you, and it’s hard to stimulate demand. There is no mental space or box for the buyer to put you in, and this applies to investors, too.
In plain terms, your category is the mental shelf where your buyer expects to find you.
Our brain prefers things that are easy to understand and classify. In behavioural psychology, this is called “cognitive categorization”, when our brains automatically group things into categories to reduce cognitive load.
Therefore, buyers buy by comparing options in their mental category, and they do this before they meet you.
Maybe it’s just with the current solution (some duct tape, a hard-working intern, and a spreadsheet), but also to frame your solution:
“Oh, so you are like Hubspot, but cheaper”.
But hang on, maybe you are not “Hubspot only cheaper”.
Well, today’s empowered buyer has done their research, formed this opinion, and created a shortlist way before you get the chance to meet them and have the opportunity to say to them:
“No, actually, we are a bit like Hubspot, but we solve your specific problem WAY cooler”.
If you don’t define the lane you are in, the prospective buyer will do it for you. You may not get the chance to have that conversation, and if they compare you to the wrong thing, you’re already losing before the first call.
This needs to be somewhat specific. “The lane you are in” is not the broader market, like “Marketing Technology”; there are over eight thousand marketing technology vendors, and no one will find you. It is the specific category - for example: “CRM vendors for legal firms”.
Buyers search, evaluate, budget, and buy by category, not by your internal language, and buyers use comparison as a shortcut. Without that shortcut, you create friction. And that friction is on both sides of the deal, friction for you explaining this market of one, and friction for them understanding where the hell to place this thing mentally.
Did I say budget?
Yes, the buyer needs to know what (and whose) budget this solution falls under, and this is often aligned with the category.
If you are genuinely unique and defining a new category with a truly fresh approach to solving a problem, then clearly, you have a different marketing challenge. You need to lean into the problem story.
You will need to split your marketing investment and messaging between educating the market on the attributes of this category, why it matters, and why the buyer needs to consider this approach versus the status quo, as well as place your product or service as a leading or preferred solution.
#1 - Consider your buyers' frame of reference
Ask questions about how your buyer views the market:
#2 - Choose the closest established category.
If you don’t find an exact fit, consider the cognitive classification I discussed earlier: people would like to put you into a box and say, “Oh.. so like X vendor/category.”
Better to choose the box and position yourself with clarity as X, but with more Y, than to take the harder road of defining and marketing a new category with a market of one.
#3 - Define your angle
The first steps are more about figuring out how you fit into the category and how you align with the current buyer's frame of reference, but, of course, we want to be distinct from the crowd.
So ask what truly differentiates your solution and, most importantly, why this matters to the buyer.
Today, nobody cares about “more AI cowbell”, everyone has “more AI cowbell”. Being innovative, leading, or even having values won’t cut it either.
#4 - Test it
You’ve built a hypothesis, defined the lane you are in, something like:
We provide [ category/problem ] solutions for a [ niche ] by providing [ differentiation ]
Now we need to test it:
A "market of one" isn’t a market, it’s a marketing problem and if you pick a lane that the buyer can recognize, you’ll be more discoverable, you’ll speed up the sales cycle as the buyer will “get” you quicker without needing to educate the value of a new category, and will know how to navigate procurement, as you tap into an established budget.
If buyers can’t place you, they can’t buy you. And if they can’t find you, they’ll buy someone they can.