May the Abilities Rest in Peace

I reviewed a prospective client's website last night, checking on their positioning and messaging as well as products, customers and overall company highlights. Then I popped to a couple of their competitors' sites to cross check the value and differentiation for myself.

It didn't take long to realize I couldn't tell the difference between these vendors if their logos dropped off their websites. Think I'm exaggerating? Fine, you try.

I give you three opening positioning statements describing the vendors' leading offerings:

• Vendor 1's product ‘delivers unsurpassed customer value, with breakthrough reliability, scalability and manageability, all within a highly cost efficient and green platform.'

• Vendor 2's product ‘offers clients unmatched performance and scalability, simple manageability, industry leading reliability and the lowest cost of operations available.'

• Vendor 3's product ‘powers real-time performance and scalability while delivering unmatched reliability, availability and serviceability - all in an economical green package.'

OK - so at least the last product has a green paint job. That's different!

Yes, for those technically inclined marketers,these are some of the areas buyers care about when investigating and acquiring technology solutions. But can't we communicate our value in a way that's more relevant and compelling to the customer, rather than thumping away at our chests about our tried and true ultimate 'abilities'? By the way, those same abilities have been claimed since I sold my first mainframe in 1982. If I'm 'mature' - those 'abilities' are from the ancient marketing scrolls!

Any of the following approaches would make one of these three positioning statements standout above the crowd - and compel customers in your direction. Think about it.

• Add quantitative evidence, and spin it in your favor. If you don't have the exact numbers, give relative percentages. Rather than ‘increased reliability and performance', how about "Systems continuously operate 25% longer with no downtime, while you complete transactions 3 times faster." I know - that's still a bit nebulous. But you get the idea. Apply the value in a way that maps to your customers' concerns and business results.

• Apply the ‘ability' to a customer scenario. Apply your value in customer language. Frame the benefit. ‘Customers can process 2x the transactions in half the time thanks to....' Then tell a story of how a customer did just that - and the impact it had on their bottom line results. Make it easy for your audience to quickly find customer stories that mirror their world - their business, their markets, their problems and challenges - and how you helped them find the solutions. People understand value when it's applied to something relevant to them. When it's not applied - they don't get a clear picture. That leaves the door open for the competition to do a better job of communicating - and grabbing the customer's interest.

• Get specific. Find a better way to talk about the value. Stop using the same industry claims every one of your competitors use. Instead of that nice 'green packaging', how about '4 out of 5 customers reduced power costs by 40% over 18 months'. That sure got the green claim across, didn't it? Better than the paint job!

The bottom line is that to truly communicate with our audiences, we need to stop using the same words that everyone drags along, and start thinking creatively, originally and most of all - think and talk like a customer.

While I'm eliminating words for marketing -  I also think phrases and words including ‘industry leading', ‘breakthrough', ‘unmatched', 'revolutionary' and the like should all be stricken from the marketing dictionary. Everyone uses those claims - to the point they've become nothing more than noise to buyers.