The Startup Guide To Differentiation

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 1
2013 Joanna Wiebe

www.CopyHackers.com
ABOUT COPY HACKERS

Copy Hackers launched with a bang on Hacker News in October of 2011. Since then, weve had
a pretty wild ride and we owe it all to the tens of thousands of copy hackers around the
world who recommend us daily via emails, tweets and good ol fashioned word of mouth.
We believe that the best copywriters are the people who built the product. Thats why we put
everything weve got into creating actionable blogs, videos, ebooks and courses for you. So you
can translate all thats awesome about your software, apps, info products, goods and services
into high-converting web copy.
Learn more at www.CopyHackers.com, home to Joanna Wiebe and Lance Jones.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
In This Ebook
Why You Need to Be Different or Better in at Least One Fantastic & Believable Way ................................ 5
1. Different Market, Audience or Niche..................................................................................................... 17
2. Different Customer Focus ...................................................................................................................... 26
3. Different Design ..................................................................................................................................... 33
4. Different Features or Components ........................................................................................................ 39
5. Different Innovation............................................................................................................................... 46
6. Different People ..................................................................................................................................... 55
7. Different Production or Creation ........................................................................................................... 61
8. Different Price ........................................................................................................................................ 67
9. Different Worldview .............................................................................................................................. 73
Messaging Your Differentiators .................................................................................................................. 81

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Why You Need to Be Different or Better

in at Least One Fantastic & Believable Way
There is no such thing as a commodity. All goods and services are differentiable.
Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business Review
IN 2012, BLUE BUFFALO COMPANY launched an advertising campaign for their pet food.
In this campaign, they invited people to visit their website to conduct a True Blue Test in
which you could compare the ingredients of your current dog food to the ingredients in
Blue. When you take the test, no matter which brands you compare, you find that Blue
is the only brand where meat is the primary ingredient.
Of course, you can only compare the brands Blue lets you compare all of which
happen to be brands from grocery stores and big box stores. Blue doesnt let you
compare their ingredients to those of the better brands youd find at your vet clinic.
The first paid copywriting assignment I ever got was for Champion Pet Foods, makers of
vet-recommended Orijen and Acana. I freelanced for them for nearly a decade. In that
time, I learned just about everything you can learn about kibble and the way its
marketed. Two of my biggest takeaways:
1. Fine pet food companies rely on veterinarian recommendations rather than mass
advertising
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
2. Some dog breeds require a diet rich in a balance of select meats, vegetables and
grasses not just a plate full of chicken, lamb or fish
Because fine pet food companies dont advertise to the masses, the masses dont know
what a pets diet should consist of. We tend to think of feeding our pets in the same way
we think of feeding our children: no high-fructose corn syrup, no corn meal, no byproducts, no hormones, easy on the gluten, plenty of protein. We dont think of the fact
that our Newfoundland Dog evolved from the indigenous St. Johns Dog in the maritime
provinces of Canada over thousands of years and, as such, is likely to perform best on a
diet of proteins and vegetables native to that area. We think, Thats a big dog, so we
should feed it big animals. Wheres the beef?
Heres why you should care about this example: unless were educated on or
passionate about a topic, we know only as much about that topic as marketers tell us.
Blue leveraged the worlds general cluelessness about pet food to differentiate
themselves in the minds of their prospects.
If youre familiar with the AMC television show Mad Men and I hope you are you
might think of this as the Its Toasted Principle. The idea behind this principle is that,
when youre trying to help people understand why they should choose you, you dont
have to be truly original or truly unique; you just have to be the first to loudly claim a
benefit, feature or value as yours.
One of the biggest questions were trying to answer for prospects when we write copy is
this:
Why should I choose you?
Your prospects are always asking that question or variations of it. Why should I stay on
your site? Why should I come back to your blog? Why should I trust you? Why should I
give you my email address, my tweet or, most of all, my hard-earned money?
Its your copys job to persuasively answer that question for your prospects. And its
your job as a marketer to step back and strategically develop the best answer for that
question. That is, its your job to figure out how to position your startup differently.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
If people dont know whats different about you, how are they supposed to know why
they should choose you?
Suffice it to say, there are countless ways that you could differentiate your business in
the minds and hearts of your prospects and customers. Blue Buffalo Company
differentiates themselves primarily on features they claim to have the most of a highly
desirable feature in their recipes: meat. In the Mad Men example, the client
differentiates based on how their product, a cigarette, is produced: its toasted.
If a business stands out from its competition, it is usually because they have
differentiated themselves in a meaningful way that their market desires. Taco Bell
stands apart from other fast food chains though not necessarily from other Mexicaninspired fast-food with Think Outside the Bun. 7-Up stands apart from colas by simply
stating that theyre The Uncola. And Target, with their increasing focus on great design
at mass consumption prices, stands apart from both low-price and high-price
departments stores; they are where you go if you expect more but want to pay less.
How will you stand apart from your competition? The chapters and worksheets that
follow in this book are designed to help you sort out your key differences and to keep
you from just pulling an idea out of a hat and differentiating based on that idea. That
said, if youd like to get a sense for the various ways you could distinguish yourself in the
minds of your prospects, voila. You could be:
Built to last
Less expensive
Better value for money
Faster
Safer
Hassle-free
Friendlier
Most helpful
Always available
Most responsive
Best-selling
Most loved
Most trusted
Most frequently used
Used by the most people
Used by experts
Used by authorities
Built with advanced technology
Brand new
Damn old
The most fun
Super gorgeous

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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The easiest to assemble

Produced differently
Packaged differently
Smaller than expected
Larger than expected
Environmentally conscious
Socially conscious
Certified by more groups

Most ethically run
Created by a unique group
Run by a celebrity
Open longer
Conveniently located
The original or the official
In looking at that list, you might start to notice some points of differentiation that apply
to you and some that seem ridiculous. For example, the idea of differentiating based
on being ethically run may be odd for your SaaS business, but it could be an excellent
way for an oil company to differentiate themselves or for anyone in a traditionally
unethical space to stand out.
Now, its no good to simply pluck an idea from that list or from any of the chapters in
this book and run with it. The thing thats different about you needs to be something
your prospects want or care about if its going to resonate and positively impact
conversion.
For example, you may have built the only app on the market that lets people subscribe
to get 850 new songs every month. This makes you different in your space, where no
other subscription service lets people access quite so much audio content. However,
does your target market give a hoot about getting 1000s of songs on their iPhone? You
would have to be able to market to some insanely passionate audiophiles (with massive
available storage) in order for that differentiator to pull.
Before You Start Pulling Ideas Out of a Hat

There are two basic starting points when youre considering how to differentiate your
startup and neither lets you throw stuff at the fridge to see what sticks. Each of these
two starting points comes with one or more questions that you should answer to help
you turn the grey area of differentiation into a sharper shade of black or white.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
STARTING POINT A: ALL ABOUT YOU

Ask yourself:
1. What gets me stoked?
STARTING POINT B: ALL ABOUT THEM
Ask yourself, in this order:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Whos my target marketing, audience or niche?

What do I offer them (in a nutshell)?
How is what I offer them different from what others offer them?
What would they say is the most important thing I help them do or outcome I
help them reach?
5. How do I help them do that thing?
Between these two approaches, I favor Starting Point B because its almost always
better to start with your target audience and build from there. In fact, the
Differentiation Interview worksheet that accompanies this book is based on Starting
Point B.
That said, some of historys most notable game-changers seemed to favor Starting Point
A. Ford and Apple are two great examples of companies that are founded on passion by
visionaries leaders who knew what we wanted long before we did.
Whichever approach you take, your answers should help you arrive at what makes you
different. Which will help your prospects, first and foremost, because theyll have little
doubt as to what theyll get when they work with you. Knowing what makes you
different will also help you know how to focus as a business what initiatives to invest
in first, what new products or services to launch next and where to focus your efforts
from this point on. To say nothing of how itll help you pitch.
Could It Be That Youre Totally, 100% the Same?

In the following 9 chapters, Im going to help you find one solid way to differentiate your
business from your competition even if you dont think your prospects care about your
competition, and even if you dont think you have any competition. Your prospects may
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
not care about the other guys now, but the other guys are going to work to make them
care. And you may not have any direct competition now, but theres always some form
of competition whether its the old familiar way of doing things or a lack of awareness
that the pain you eliminate can be eliminated.
There is always a need to differentiate or distinguish your solution as the one that most
desirably does X. You are not the exception to this rule.
Now heres the thing: What if theres nothing really special about you?
What if youve built a photo-sharing app thats a total knock-off of Instagram? You built
it because you wanted a project to work on. Now you think it could be cool to get some
users, so you have to market it. But you have no idea why a person should install your
app, which has one 4-star review, over Instagram, which is a household name.
Your product is built. Youve launched. And youve found yourself standing in what
appears to be a House of Mirrors but is actually just the space your competition fills. You
have to figure out stat how to set yourself apart. So how do you make your solution
stand out without changing it?
This is a classic marketing challenge.
This book and the Differentiation Interview worksheet will help you find the story that
distinguishes your solution without changing it. Of course, if youre able to make
tweaks to your product or service here and there, you may be better able to land on a
meaningful differentiator you can shape your company around.
Now, you could be in the other camp the luckier camp. You could be in an idea
validation stage, and you could have plenty of time to build a key differentiator (or two)
into your product or service. Consider yourself blessed. Know that youre envied.
In each of the following chapters, youll find examples of how startups and growing
businesses in these 4 worlds are differentiating themselves today:
1. Software as a service (SaaS)
2. Downloads & installs
3. Hard goods
4. Other (e.g., offline business)

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
If youre already knee-deep in your business and youre finding it hard to communicate
why someone should choose you youre working on your pitch deck or you just want
to draft a few compelling USPs to test on your site then youll find that here.
In fact, you may find a half-dozen ways to differentiate yourself. Yes, you can
differentiate in more ways than one. That said, I recommend you choose a key
differentiator and roll with that. So people have a firm grip on what you do differently
and better. But dont feel the need to limit yourself too much. The final worksheet,
titled What Makes Us Different & Better, will help you prioritize the ways youre
different.
Lets be very clear: you should probably not try to differentiate in a half-dozen ways.
One way is great. Two ways is perfectly wonderful. Three is starting to push it.
Remember the goal of differentiation: to help your prospects know why to choose
you. The enemy of decision-making is too many options. So try to stick to no more than
three differentiators grand total for your startup, okay?unless you have reason to do
otherwise.
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, lets see how you can be desirably different even if youre
exactly the same as the next guy. Remember, Ive included specific examples for
startups in SaaS as well as ecommerce, downloads, installs and services. By the time you
finish all 70 pages that follow, you should have arrived at one solid way to differentiate
your startup as well as a few supporting differentiators. The final chapter will help you
make sense of writing copy that effectively highlights your differentiator.
THESE EBOOKS COMPLEMENT

The Startup Guide to Differentiation
Where Stellar Messages Come From and
The Great Value Proposition Test
Find them here
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Your First Action Item

PRINT OFF THE FOLLOWING WORKSHEET, titled Differentiation Interview, or have it
open on your computer so you can type directly into it.
Throughout the following chapters, youll need to refer to the worksheet and complete
sections of it. Why? So you can arrive at a shortlist of ways to differentiate yourself
and, with a little work, even find the best possible key differentiator for your startup.
NOTE: This worksheet is also available as a separate Word document among your file
downloads for this ebook. Check your receipt link to find it.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
DIFFERENTIATION INTERVIEW
This interview is a companion to Copy Hackers: The Startup Guide to Differentiation. All
question numbers correspond to the nine differentiation strategies in the book.
OUR NAME
OUR COMPETITORS NAMES
Incumbent:
Other Direct Competitors:
Other Indirect Competitors:
IS THIS SOMETHING
UNIQUE OR
DIFFERENT FOR US?
1
WHOM do we serve
primarily?
What others in our space

serve them directly or
primarily?
1.1
Name three (3) niches in this

group.
Which one (1) of these

niches makes the most sense
for us to focus on, if any?
How do we offer outstanding

SERVICE to this group?
Which of our competitors

can say the same or better?
Why or how?
WHAT do we serve our

audience with (i.e., product,
service)?
Which others market the

same or a very similar
product or service to our
audience?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
MIGHT THIS BE A
DIFFERENTIATOR
WORTH
PURSUING?
3.1
How is our product or service

focused on DESIGN, whether
interface, interaction or
experience?
How do we know our

audience cares about
design?
What is our one (1) unique

product or service FEATURE?
What key problem does this

feature solve for our
audience?
What is most INNOVATIVE

about our offering?

Why or how?
5.1
HOW do we serve our

audience? What adjective can
we use to describe how we do
what we do?
How is the way we serve

them different from the way
others serve them?
WHO internally/externally
makes our product or delivers
our service?

Why or how?
6.1
What is unique or interesting

about the PEOPLE that
created this product (e.g.,
about our team or founders)?
Why does this difference

matter to our audience?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
How do we MAKE the product

or DELIVER the service?
Which of my competitors
use the same method of
production or service
delivery?
What do we CHARGE?
Why is this price attractive to

our audience?
What is our point of view,

perspective or WORLDVIEW?
Why does our audience

care?
9.1
How are we socially

conscious?

Why or how?
9.2
How are we environmentally

conscious?

Why or how?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
1.
Different Market, Audience or Niche
EVERYONES BUILDING A PRODUCT FOR SOMEONE, and it could be that you and your
competitors are building a product for exactly the same market or audience. If thats the
case, you may want to focus on a niche, serve them well and create the platform you
need to expand into more niches and eventually claim market share.
Why might you want to differentiate based on niche? Lets consider the world of
invoicing and accounting software, as an example. This is a world I came to know very
well during my five years at Intuit. In this space, QuickBooks is the incumbent, with
FreshBooks, Less Accounting, Xero and Kashoo among others biting at their heels;
collectively, their primary target market is small businesses. Providers of accounting
software tend to differentiate based on features and user experience design; for
example, FreshBooks has perfected invoicing, which is one of many features of
2013 Joanna Wiebe
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QuickBooks, and Less Accounting offers a better experience design they stand out as
the unboring solution.
When everyone in your space is serving the same market, a strategy for differentiating
your startup could be to focus on a segment of that market, or a niche.
Seem obvious?
Thats probably because, when were in the earliest stages of building a product or
developing a solution, we naturally find ourselves deciding to go vertical or go
horizontal. Its an organic question to ask early on:
Will we serve an industry segment (vertical) or
will we offer something to the entire industry (horizontal)?
Two great ways to know if you should serve a niche are 1) if it is underserved by the
incumbent or off their radar and 2) if it has specific needs you can serve. Not to
overuse the Intuit examples, but, in Canada, there is no QuickBooks or TurboTax
product for Mac users. As of June 2013, Mac users in Canada are not a large enough
market segment for Intuit Global Business to create products for. This makes Mac users
in Canada especially Canadian small business owners who use Macs and need
accounting software a particularly interesting, underserved niche; its a niche too small
for the incumbent to worry about but large enough for a startup to address.
(Plus, when you differentiate based on a niche the big guys cant serve well, you often
position yourself well for the ultimate exit: acquisition by said big guys.)
Who will you serve? Can you better serve a narrower segment of the audience you were
planning to serve? Would serving a segment or niche help you:
Better target your messages and use more specific, meaningful language?
Better pinpoint highly qualified prospects to cold call?
Make smarter pricing decisions?
Spend less on PPC ads by purchasing more long-tail keywords?
Become a hero among a niche, resulting in more tweets, shares and likes?
Gain the traction you need to become profitable and grow?
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
The examples that follow will help you see how other startups are niching to grow.
SAAS
If you decide to hitch your wagon to someone elses horse, youre essentially niching.
With an attach strategy, youre saying, Hey, a bunch of people are using X product.
Some of those people might want to do more with X product, so Im building Xy product
to help them do that.
Lets look at an example: Vancouvers Postach.io, which turns your Evernote notebook
into a blog or CMS. Evernote serves a rather broad market, and Postach.io servers a
sliver of that market: people who want to publish their notes. If you dont use Evernote,
you cant use Postach.io. But if you do and you want to self-publish, Postach.io can help
you.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
A great time to differentiate by niche is after youve learned that a certain niche most
appreciates your product. Photo editing solution Aviary didnt launch as a solution for
developers, but now the second-most prominent message on their home page,
immediately below the hero section, is this:
DOWNLOADS & INSTALLS

Calculators are all essentially the same. But Digits, the Calculator for Humans, does a
rather solid job of convincing the world otherwise. Its $0.99 in a world of free
calculators including the one that comes installed on your iPad and its rated at a
solid 5 stars, with 225 reviews as of May 2013. People love it. People pay for it. Its a
calculator for humans. Thats smart marketing.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
GameChanger is a sports app focused not on the major leagues but on youth sports.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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HARD GOODS
You dont always have to serve a narrow niche; you could also focus on serving a
segment of a large market, which is particularly common among consumer goods
providers. Examples include:
Juicy Juice, which promises 100% juice for 100% kids not for moms, not for
athletes, not for scholars but for kids who act (and play) like kids
Trix Cereal, which, like Juicy Juice, is for kids; yes, all sugary breakfast cereal is
made for kids, but Trix is the one who says it
Harley Davidson, which speaks to Americans first and rebellious people second
The Sharper Image, which offers unique gifts for a specific market segment:
people trying to buy gifts for those annoying semi-affluent folks that have
everything
One of my readers Jaimie has a consumer electronics startup, where she and her
husband have patented the only attachable camera flash for iPhone. Their market is
very narrow. To use their product, you need to:
Have an
iPhone
Love taking
photos on it
Want to take
the best
photos on it
For that specific niche, Jaimie is solving a real problem. And she is the only one solving it
with an external flash for iPhone. Jaimie and her husband may not have set out to
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
differentiate themselves in this way, but they would be wise to use this particular
differentiator as a key part of their messaging for new visitors.
SERVICES
There are something like a million startup incubators I think its nearing a quarter
billion now, in San Francisco alone but Stained Glass Labs stands apart as a different
kind of incubator. (For now, at least.) They are an incubator dedicated to a specific
niche: startups in wearable computing.
Just as there are countless incubators, there are countless dating sites. Personal
matchmakers are carving out part of the online dating market by serving people who
are tired of the online dating scene, and within personal matchmaking we see further
niching.
Like Geeks Dream Girl, designed to help geeks find love. It is founded and run by the
copywriter for ThinkGeek.com:

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
More Takes on Differentiating by Market, Segment or Niche

So far, weve talked about differentiating based on your end user or paying customer.
But here are two other spins on this:
1. Differentiate by Who Your Audience Wants to Be
Crisco vegetable shortening promises that Cooks who know trust Crisco. If you
are selling a product or service to a group that uses your solution to reach an
aspiration, you could differentiate by connecting that aspiration with your
solution.
Further to this, you could differentiate based on the influential people or
authority figures that use your solution.
2. Differentiate by Whom Youre Not For
For years, Oldsmobile marketed itself as Not your fathers Oldsmobile.
(Whether that was believable or not is another story.) Secret antiperspirant was
Strong enough for a man. Made for a woman. Have you considered trying to
align yourself with one niche by openly resisting another or the larger market?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Isnt This Just Market Segmentation, Joanna?

Well, yes. Discussions of market segmentation and product differentiation have
traditionally gone hand in hand. But were not here to get bogged down in terminology
or academia; there are loads of marketing books and university courses that will
complicate the practicalities of differentiation, if youd like to go there. I wouldnt. My
goal is to help you figure out whats different about you so you can message your
most desirable difference and, in doing so, help prospects know why they should choose
you not to wax theoretical about segmentation versus differentiation.
In fact, most marketers that talk about segmentation and differentiation get rather
confused. Because theres so much overlap. Especially when were not talking only
about product differentiation but also about the many other critical ways to
differentiate: brand, service, packaging and niche.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
2.
Different Customer Focus
ITS EXPENSIVE. ITS TIME-CONSUMING. Its an eternal commitment. And your
customers will love you for it.
Naturally, were talking now about differentiating yourself as the business in your
industry or market that focuses on customers. On selflessly helping customers. On
continually supporting customers. On consistently giving back to customers. On doing all
of these things (and more) in ways and to an extent that your competition doesnt
match.
Now, if you ask a startup founder if shes focused on customers, youd be hard-pressed
to hear her say anything but, Yes! We all believe were focused on customers simply
because we think about our customers: we design our websites to help them; we offer
support FAQs for them; we answer their questions via email; sometimes we have live
chat available on our sites; we offer money-back guarantees. But thats not a customer
focus. Thats just keeping your prospects and customers satisfied.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
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Theres a difference between satisfying customers and delighting them. The business
that differentiates by customer focus works relentlessly to delight customers. You prove
your commitment to their happiness in everything that you do.
Lets take Zappos as an example. Zappos is powered by service, and CEO Tony Hsieh is
the author of 2010s Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. The
world already knows about Zapposs 365-day returns, 24/7 phone support, massive
selection and free two-way shipping. But thats just scratching the surface.
To support Zapposs customer focus at a deeper level, they have:
Created a line of clothing called DH, which is branded Apparel for a Happier
World. One hundred percent of their net profits go to the Delivering Happiness
movement, which promotes happiness at non-profits, businesses and schools.
Ensured every person hired, no matter their position, spends their first four
weeks getting immersed in the culture of customer service, which includes taking
calls in the contact center. If youre above talking to customers, youre not right
for Zappos.
Set an internal goal of product delivery within 4 days of ordering. This means that,
unlike other online retailers, they warehouse their entire inventory, taking on the
expense of investing in stock so they can offer it speedily to their customers.
Offered as many as four years to return a product. Yup, if you order on February
29 (in a leap year), they will give you until the next February 29 four years later
to return your unworn order.
Eliminated the bad parts of phoning a companys service line. That is, service reps
dont have to follow scripts, stifle their personalities or hurry off the phone.
Ensured refunds are returned to your credit card within 7 days. Not 30 days. Not
60 days. Not some unknown random date out there. Within 7 days, youll have
your money back on your card.
Shut down operations in countries where they cant offer the level of service they
want to. Unfortunately for me, that means theres no Zappos Canada.
Most businesses try to solve for these three stakeholders, not necessarily in this order:
i.
Employees
ii.
Customers
iii.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Shareholders
If youre differentiating by customer focus, youre solving for customers first. The good
news is that, if you have an obsession with making your customers happy, your
employees and shareholders will usually benefit. That said, theyll need to buy into your
strategy as much as you do because employees will have to love customers, and
shareholders or investors will have to be okay with spending cash to keep customers
overjoyed.
SAAS
37signals has taken an interesting and transparent approach to customer focus. In their
marketing, 37signals often uses imagery of actual product users, especially on
Basecamp.com.
Although their customers happiness is their priority, they have famously rejected
customer requests for new features in Basecamp not because they dont like their
customers but because they know better than to do whatever theyre asked. They make
all their customers happy by not listening to what one or two of them have to say. As I
said, its an interesting approach and one thats paid off for them, with millions of
2013 Joanna Wiebe
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users in over 30 countries. Heres what

they have to say on their home page
about their dedication to customers:
Our customers are our investors
Our customers fund our daily
operations by paying for our
products. We answer to them
not investors, the stock market, or
a board of directors.
Perhaps most notably, 37signals is ubertransparent about how they make
customers happy (not just satisfied). At
any point, you can go to this page and
see an up-to-date report of how happy
their customers are with their support.
They explain on the page so theres no
need to guess and nothing left implied
why they share this happiness report:
Full transparency and
accountability
Weve made these ratings public
so everyone knows how were
doing. We want to be held to the
highest possible standards for
customer service. Full
transparency keeps us honest.
A screen capture of their report for May
30, 2013 is shown to the right.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com

You dont get to be a highly respected customer support platform without caring about
customers. In 2011, Zendesk released its first iOS app to help customer support agents
respond to support requests quickly, even when theyre away from their computers.
Beyond their apps, Zendesk supports their customers with insanely useful free content,
such as their very popular high-quality infographics on topics like service report cards,
how to build customer loyalty and how to know if your customers are tired of being
surveyed.
HARD GOODS
When LL Bean was late delivering a canoe to a customer, one of the LL Bean employees
strapped said canoe to his car and drove from their headquarters in Maine to New
Jersey to deliver the canoe. In person. This is just one example of how LL Bean follows
through on their promise of service that goes the extra mile. They also offer always
free shipping, regardless of your order size. Their relentless customer focus is why JD
Power and Associates continues to rank them at the top for Customer Satisfaction,
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which, by the way, is a rather persuasive proof point that surely helps them convert
more prospects into customers.
SERVICES
Differentiators done right are differentiators that solve a real customer problem.
Enterprise Rent-a-Car solves a distinct problem for people renting cars: they often have
no transportation to the place where theyre supposed to rent the car. Enterprise solved
that problem, among many, when one of their front-line employees came up with the
idea to pick customers up. Now the #1 car rental company in America with over 62,000
employees worldwide, Enterprise is the car company that will pick you up.
This is just one aspect of their focus on customer happiness. Their company philosophy,
set forth by founder Jack Taylor is this: Take care of your customers and employees,
and the profits will follow.
Interestingly, Enterprise didnt start as a rental car
company. According to the book Exceeding
Customer Expectations: What Enterprise, America's
#1 car rental company, can teach you about creating
lifetime customers, Enterprise was an automobile leasing business that transformed
into a loaner business after customers started asking to rent a car while theirs was in the
shop. The company pivoted and turned into something both inspiring and hugely
profitable (to the tune of $9B a year) thanks to listening to and serving their customers.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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NOW ITS YOUR TURN

Refer to your Differentiation Interview. Answer the questions in the first three
numbered rows (i.e., 1, 1.1, 2). When youre completing the rightmost two columns, do
your best to be critical about whether 1) you could or already do legitimately serve this
group and 2) differentiating this way is likely to be good for your business (i.e., it will
help your customers choose you, recommend you and stick with you).
IS THIS SOMETHING
UNIQUE OR
DIFFERENT FOR US?
1
WHOM do we serve
primarily?
What others in our space

serve them directly or
primarily?
1.1
Name three (3) niches in this

group.
Which one (1) of these

niches makes the most sense
for us to focus on, if any?
How do we offer outstanding

SERVICE to this group?

Why or how?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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MIGHT THIS BE A
DIFFERENTIATOR
WORTH
PURSUING?
3.
Different Design
WHEN WE TALK ABOUT A DIFFERENT DESIGN, we tend to think, Oh, Apple. If you
value beautiful aesthetic design, you will likely choose Apple products. Apple is a classic
case study of committing to visual design as a key differentiator and having the world
not only love you for it but pay you twice as much for it while overlooking the unseemly
conditions in which those gorgeous designs are brought to life.
Its easy to hold your iPad in your hands and start wandering down the Apple Fanboy
path, but lets consider the other side of design: experience design.
Now were not talking about visual or user interface (UI) design, which Apple confidently
does like no other; were talking about user experience (UX) design. The design of the
experience. How users and customers interact with your products.
This is the other half of differentiating by design.
This is the part where we look at our beautiful iPad and ask:
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How would a new user turn this thing on and off?

Why isnt this very important, do-everything button labeled?
What are we supposed to do about all the smears on the screen?
How on earth could I possibly know that, if I hold down the unlabeled Home
button and click the unlabeled Power button, I can take a screenshot of my iPad?
This is the part where we throw the Apple TV remote control across the room.
This is the part where we growl at iTunes and give up.
This is the part where we scream at the second iPod weve purchased in the past six
months as it, too, inexplicably fails to play. Just as were about to run a half-marathon.
I know, I know: Apples amazing and all those problems are somehow my fault. But
could an Apple competitor outshine Apple by focusing not on visual, aesthetic or
industrial design but on a better user experience? Further, could an Apple competitor,
like Samsung, gain market share by offering equally beautiful hardware and an equally
beautiful interface plus a superior user experience?
Dont hate on me for asking the questions. Im just asking.
In this chapter, lets take a look at how products and services are differentiating by
visual design, user/customer experience design or both.
SAAS
If experience is part of design, then Salesforce
differentiates by design in championing an
installation-free user experience: No
Software.
Youd be hard-pressed to find a company
making installed software today; even Adobe
is moving fully from a downloaded Creative
Suite to the Adobe Creative Cloud. But that
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doesnt change the fact that Salesforce is the one company most loudly and proudly
waving the everything in the cloud flag.
This is the Its Toasted Principle at work: you dont have to be the only one to
differentiate in X way you just have to be the first to say it the loudest.

Search video player in iTunes. Youll quickly see that there are at least a dozen free
non-descript video players for YouTube, a selection of best video players, and then a
few that stand out as believably different and possibly better. One of those is Infuse,
The Beautiful Way to Watch Videos:

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For people who want a more enjoyable video-viewing experience on their iPad, Infuse
stands out quickly. Then, when you click to read their description, you find this:
Made for film buffs, design enthusiasts and anyone whose eyes are slowly
morphing into screen-shaped rectangles.
People who love beautifully designed interfaces will love Infuse. And the proof is in the
pudding: quickly after launching, Infuse became the #1 entertainment app in the App
Store.
HARD GOODS
European and Japanese automobiles invariably aim to differentiate on design (with
luxury vehicles perhaps having more to offer in the way of differentiating on a better
driving experience, too). BMW offers the ultimate driving machine while the
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Volkswagen Beetle claimed a solid stake in the minds and

hearts of Americans by differentiating on their compact
design with the Think Small campaign of the 1950s.
Mercedes Benz draws you into their dealership based on
visual / aesthetic design but sells you on their car with
experience design. Sports car modeling means the seat
hugs your body when you sit. They hold patents on every
safety feature except the seatbelt, making a Mercedes a
confidence-inspiring car to drive. AMG models take the
driving experience to a new level with four handling
modes, including the not-for-the-faint-of-heart Sport
Plus.
Great design is so entrenched in Mercedes Benz that it doesnt stop at the design of the
car. The entire purchasing and maintenance experience is different here. Being a
Mercedes customer is a completely
unique experience. Yes, this is design.
Buy a Mercedes, and you can expect
your car to be washed when its in for
servicing. You can expect to be
remembered by name. You can expect
to be invited to exclusive events, like
rare car shows. And you can expect that,
when you drive the car off the lot, it not
only doesnt instantly depreciate but it
will be more likely to hold its value and then some. Everything that can be well-designed
is here.
NOTE: This aligns with a customer focus differentiator, but thats not the key
differentiator for Mercedes. Theyre all about design, at all levels. Customer focus is a
natural outcome of great design flawless aesthetic and experience design lead to
happier customers thus it could be a secondary differentiator for Mercedes.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
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SERVICES
If you want an amazing vacation experience, a handful of destinations may come to
mind. If you want an amazingly crazy vacation experience something so enjoyable
youll probably be ashamed of yourself at one point theres really only one place to go:
Las Vegas provides an experience thats unlike any you can get elsewhere. Its so
focused on a particular type of customer experience, it is the ultimate destination for
stags, stagettes and any trips where you leave the kids at home. Las Vegas Convention &
Visitors Authority has done an outstanding job of differentiating Las Vegas as a
destination with a unique customer experience.
~
HAVE YOU CONSIDERED differentiating the way your service is designed and delivered?
Consultants can stand apart from their competitors by productizing their services, or
simply allowing services to be purchased as products on their websites so your
prospects can avoid the hassle of the more traditional consulting design: request a
quote, get on a calendar, give a deposit, etc.
We have productized our most in-demand services at Copy Hackers and, although
experience design is not our key differentiator, it is unique to us and a great message for
landing pages.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
4.
Different Features or Components
BLOATED, CLUNKY PRODUCTS ARE usually the outcome of Features Wars, in which at
least two competitors duke it out release after release to claim I have more of this and I
have better of that. Ive experienced Feature Wars firsthand for several software
products. They suck at least as much as Price Wars do. It is a very exhausting experience
to try to outdo the other guys with the addition or deletion of a feature or two.
Especially given that features are rarely what customers are interested in.
But there are rare times when differentiating your startups product or service based on
a great feature, component or element is the right way to go for your customers.
For example, you might want to differentiate by feature when your feature is in highdemand or ultra-cool, such as airbags when they were first introduced or, more
recently, Siri in iPhone. Your customers are looking for them. So, if youve got em,
flaunt em!

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For being such an obvious way to go, differentiating by feature isnt always that easy to
grasp. Especially outside the world of software. So Ive found it helpful to think of one
product, understand its features, and see how we can rebuild that product to turn out
different versions of it. This can help us see how we might differentiate our product by
feature.
What product shall we use? A very basic one: caramel popcorn.
Basic caramel popcorn is made of popped popcorn and a mixture of butter, brown
sugar, salt, corn syrup and baking soda. If you were to start selling caramel popcorn
today, you could differentiate on feature in any of these ways:
Add more of a good component: Extra caramel sauce

Add less of a bad component: Half the butter
Replace a bad component with a better one: Maple syrup instead of corn syrup
Add an entirely new component: Roasted peanuts!
Add a better version of a good component: Double-churned butter
Tack on a complementary component: A prize in the box
The challenge with features is that, unless theyre expressly patented, it becomes very
easy for your competition to copy you. You may do the hard work of developing the
feature and marketing its benefits, but your competitor could sweep in and add the
same feature even a better version of it thus turning your product marketing efforts
into their product marketing efforts. Not fun.
Most of us do end up differentiating based on feature. Most websites have a Tour,
How It Works or Features page thats loaded with descriptions of the elements and
components that make up the larger solution. That said, when were talking features,
were not always talking about a new feature. Were often talking about a better version
of an existing feature, and that better version helps us make claims like:
Faster _____
Smarter _____
Better_____
Easier _____
Safer _____
Larger _____
Smaller _____
Sexier _____

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If you are already leading with an adverb or adjective like the above, then you are
almost certainly differentiating by feature. And that may be perfectly awesome.
But if you didnt consciously decide to differentiate this way, is it time to rethink this
strategy?
SAAS
Support Q&A platform Fixya has a great dashboard, whereas competitor AnswerHub
doesnt mention anything about a dashboard for their software.
Because Fixya is ideal for larger businesses, a dashboard goes a long way. The Fixya
dashboard helps support managers, product managers and marketers understand at a
glance where their product problems are by turning support emails into a simple view.
Managers can quickly see which products have the most reported problems and what
people are reporting the problems. So they can do something about it.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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Indoor wayfinding software startup
Meridian has something none of their
competitors do: Zones. Zones use
WiFi sensing to allow businesses to
push messages to peoples phones
when they enter a zone. It even works
in parkades, where GPS solutions
dont.
And m-commerce provider ZooZ has a
unique feature of its own: its a mobile checkout that learns about users and simplifies
payment for them each time they buy. This feature is great for customers as they can
move closer to an Amazon-style one-click (or tap) payment. And its great for businesses
because less friction in checkout often means more conversions. If there was ever a
time for a business to differentiate by feature, this would be it.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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HARD GOODS
Lets see. Almost every item on a shelf is differentiating by feature. For more examples,
venture into a grocery store and have a walk around!
Chesterfield Cigarettes stand apart from other cigarettes because theyre a silly
millimeter longer
Ivory Soap was better than alternatives based on the purity of its ingredients (i.e,
99.44% pure)
Tide Free & Gentle is made without dyes or perfumes
Bionaturae is not only gluten-free but organic gluten-free pasta
The Kindle is a great example of a hard good thats differentiated from multiple
competitors: traditional books, other ereaders and tablets. Time and again, they
differentiate based not on the power of the Amazon name or on the fact that they were
the first dedicated ereader for the masses but on the components and features that
make a Kindle a Kindle with the most notable feature being its no-glare display.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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Christian Louboutin is another no-brainer example of

differentiating by feature in this case, the famous red
sole. Women who spend $1000 on a pair of shoes have
their choice of luxury brands eager to take their
money; these people are likely to want others to know
that theyre not wearing Aldo. Louboutins red sole
differentiates the product, the brand and heres the
real trick to differentiating like a pro the customer.
Unfortunately, any shoe manufacturer can paint their
soles red and give their customers a budget-friendly
way to look like theyre wearing Louboutin shoes. Louboutin has tried to combat this
with a Stop Fake campaign. And this is why differentiating by feature can be bad in the
long run: unless well-patented, features are very easy to copy.
SERVICES
Canadas Unhaggle does something interesting with features: it removes the annoying
ones. Unhaggle has removed the most painful elements of the car buying experience,
with a major focus on getting rid of haggling.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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Admittedly, I was a little hard on the entire notion of differentiating by feature at the
start of this section of the book. But thats because this sort of differentiating is by far
the most common, its the easiest for competitors to copy which means it may not be
your differentiator for long and it most often leaves us with a big question: If Im
differentiating by feature and I have a dozen or so features, which one should I lead
with? The answer is rarely clear, so we end up messaging a garbled mess of features and
never really communicating the unique value our products offer.
So, sure, differentiate by feature. Go ahead. But please make it a good one. One that
your prospects will actually care about and your business will be remembered for. And
consider being loud and proud about it so that, when your competitors try to copy it,
they will look like theyre late to the game.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
5.
Different Innovation
INVENTIONS AND BIG-TIME INNOVATIONS. With this differentiator, were not just
talking about doing something different or better and, thus, being innovative. Were
talking about deeper, unmistakable innovations, real game-changers, massive
disrupters and envy-inspiring, youve-never-seen-this-before inventions.
Are you doing something or offering something that will change peoples lives forever?
Have you created something that other businesses will look at and say, How do we
build something that works with that?
Were talking Google Glass. Electricity, the World Wide Web, the radio, the ballpoint
pen, the printing press inventions. The digital camera, the smartphone, Dropbox,
Square, Photoshop, hybrid cars, the Dyson vacuum, online learning innovations.
If youre inventing, innovating, disrupting a market or changing the game,
congratulations: it will be easy to differentiate. The hard part may be educating people
about the existence of your amazing solution and trying your damnedest to get an
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investor to help you market your business (because no one will be searching for you,
and its going to take time to raise your awareness). Lets look at how some gamechangers in a range of industries are standing out.
SAAS
When both President Obama and Mitt Romney use the same testing tool for their
campaigns, you know youve got a game-changer on your hands. Optimizely is a
platform that uses an uber-simple interface and a line of code to dramatically simplify
online split-testing. Compare Optimizely to Google Content Experiments, and youll
quickly see which is better for the most likely optimizer in an org: the marketer.

I first saw VerbalizeIt on Shark Tank in 2013 and, like every other viewer out there, could
immediately see what was different about them: VerbalizeIt hires anyone who can
speak two languages as an on-demand translator. Previously, if you were eating in Japan
and accidentally got liver yakitori instead of chicken yakitori, youd need Patrick
McKenzie on speed dial to get through it. Now youd just need VerbalizeIt.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
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More in the innovation and less in the game-changing space, perhaps, is the very cool
Jetpac. The users pain is that they dont know where to go on vacation or what to do
when theyre there; admittedly, thats a high-class problem to have, but its a problem
nonetheless. Jetpac takes all the travel photos from your friends social profiles and
helps you get a sense for where you may or may not want to go next.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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Youre waiting for your four-shot latte in your fave artisan coffee shop. Youre flipping
through your phone to kill time and look important. In walks someone who makes you
do a double-take, but you couldnt possibly go talk to them.
Enter Tinder, the app that lets you flirt with people around you. So you can tell that
hottie that, well, you think theyre hot. And then go back to not making eye contact.
HARD GOODS
3D printing boggles my poor lil English Major mind, but its the core of innovation at the
aptly named Bespoke Innovations Inc, which prints customized coverings for artificial
limbs. How many prosthetics providers can say the same?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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AOptix creates insanely innovative eye recognition software. Like in the movies. But
made for real life. Their technology captures the eyes iris from a meter away. They are
not only disrupting all identity and identification systems but specifically the uberannoying world of airport security. They could even render passports obsolete.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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SERVICES
Perhaps you have a different approach to solving a problem. You do something other
people do, but you do it so differently that youre changing the game. Your innovation is
in how you do what you do.
For as long as the world can remember, weve had hotels; the Christmas story tells of
Mary and Joseph being turned away from an inn. Hotels are accepted and understood.
But then along came Airbnb and the hotel industry, how people travel and how people
make side income were completely changed:
TransferWise is disrupting the traditional world of money transfers by crowdsourcing

transfers; that is, they let you use the crowd to move your money. Like everyone else,
they transfer money but their process does it better insofar as it cuts back on hidden
fees.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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Kayak lets users compare hundreds of travel sites at once, from a single interface. Unlike
TripAdvisor, that sends you out to other travel sites, or the various travel sites that
operate in silos, Kayak never forces you to leave their site. You can search one and
done.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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YOUR TURN
Continue working through the Differentiation Interview, this time focusing on questions
3, 3.1, 4, 5 and 5.1. The past few chapters will help you.
IS THIS SOMETHING
UNIQUE OR
DIFFERENT FOR US?
3
WHAT do we serve our

audience with (i.e., product,
service)?
Which others market the

same or a very similar
product or service to our
audience?
3.1
How is our product or service

focused on DESIGN, whether
interface, interaction or
experience?
How do we know our

audience cares about
design?
What is our one (1) unique

product or service FEATURE?
What key problem does this

feature solve for our
audience?
What is most INNOVATIVE

about our offering?

Why or how?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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MIGHT THIS BE A
DIFFERENTIATOR
WORTH
PURSUING?
5.1
HOW do we serve our

audience? What adjective can
we use to describe how we do
what we do?
How is the way we serve

them different from the way
others serve them?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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6.
Different People
EARNING TRUST IS KEY for converting your visitors and very difficult for new
businesses or startups to do. But if you have a well-known personality behind your
startup or a distinct group creating your solution, you can help new visitors lower their
guards and consider giving you their business.
In addition to helping you earn trust, leading with messages about the people at your
company can give you an edge in social spaces. People rarely connect with businesses or
corporations; people connect with other people. As of May 2013, 37signalss Jason Fried
has just over 112,000 Twitter followers while his company 37signals has nearly 20,000
fewer at 94,771. ThinkTraffics Corbett Barr has nearly 13,000 Twitter followers;
ThinkTraffic has just over 7,000 followers.
People prefer to do business with people. People trust people. People like people.
People follow people. If social media is a key part of your marketing or growth hacking
strategy, you may want to consider making the people at your company a key part of
your differentiation strategy.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
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Differentiating by people can look like:

Prominently showcasing a celebrity even an internet celebrity involved in your
startup in your marketing and/or packaging
Connecting the dots to show why the founders of your startup are the exactly
right people to have created your solution
Highlighting the people behind your company, such as front-line employees
Leveraging the power of a famous product or service you also made (e.g., from
the makers of)
You dont have to be the winner of Top Chef to launch and run a thriving restaurant. But
if you had won Top Chef, youd probably be wise to let your prospects know who you
are. Same goes for any business where you may be having a hard time setting yourself
apart and you have an ace in your pocket cos youre a rockin personality.
SAAS
If you wanted to market your business online, would you choose software by Mr.
Anonymous or software by people from Google, masters of getting found online?
MarketStarter is the product of former Google employees, which they message as their
key point of differentiation: Get online marketing guidance for your business from
former Googlers.
Sure, Google has thousands of employees. These guys couldve worked in the mailroom.
But thats not the point. (At least not initially. Eventually, youd have to say what you did
at Google.) The point here is to stand out from other marketing solutions by talking
about the people who created your marketing solution.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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So often, when youre marketing an app for kids, youre not marketing to the kids but to
their parents, who are likely to find the apps, approve the apps and pay for the apps.
And in the crowded space of educating kids with new media, helping parents to know
why they should trust their kids minds in your hands is pretty critical.
Kidaptive helps kids learn via smart storytelling on iPads. They prove that theyre the
right people to handle this job by frequently messaging that their app was developed in
collaboration with top university researchers. They expand on this message on their
Team page:

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If you love one app by a company, chances are pretty good youll at least like their other
apps. Realmac Software helps people know why they should choose their app Analog
Camera by referring to their past successes in the critical first line of their App Store
description:
The fastest and easiest way to take, process and share photos
from the folks behind the revolutionary to-do list app Clear
HARD GOODS
If youre in the market for a healthier
juice, would you want something from
the makers of Pepsi or something
thats proudly from the makers of a
popular cleanse?
Blue Print Juice is like an extension of
the popular Blue Print Cleanse and, with
a solid background story, a great fit for
differentiating by the trustworthy hands
that made the product.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
SERVICES
Anybody with an MBA or an acquisition under their belt could coach small businesses on
running their businesses. But Human Business Works stands apart from so many other
coaching solutions by ensuring all of their messages come from their uber-respected
CEO Chris Brogan. Even their home page is signed by Brogan:
Although there are loads of business coaches online, there are only so many regional
airlines one can choose from. Many regional airlines make the mistake of believing no
competition now means no competition ever and, thus, failing to differentiate. In turn,
they fail to entrench their brands in the hearts of their customers.
People choose these airlines because they have no choice.
But when a new airline enters the mix, giving customers the choice they once lacked,
they have no reason to stay with the old guys. Not good.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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WestJet started as a regional airline serving western Canada and has grown in the last
decade to be Canadas most preferred
airline.
Early on, WestJet differentiated based on
the people working at the airline. This
differentiation strategy has paid off well and
continues to set them apart.
Employees of WestJet are shareholders in
WestJet; WestJet has thus built a highly
differentiated brand based on the phrase
Owners Care. They tell us whos behind
the product; they tell us what those people
are about; they connect the dots so we
understand; and, as a result, we believe
and they grow.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
7.
Different Production or Creation
IF YOU WERE A CORN FARMER, you might choose not to use pesticides on your crops. If
you were a chicken farmer, you might choose to grain-feed your chickens and let them
run free. If you were a legume farmer, you might rotate your crops annually to promote
sustainable agriculture and produce more nutrient-rich legumes. If you were a fifthgeneration orange farmer, you might have, over
decades, cultivated proprietary methods and
processes for growing and harvesting oranges.
I strongly doubt anyone reading this book is a
farmer.
But the example of how farmers today differentiate
that is, by the processes used in growing and
harvesting their crops is an easy way to start
thinking about how you, as a non-farmer, might
differentiate.
ITS TOASTED
In the famous first episode

of Mad Men, Don Draper
created a tagline that
differentiated Lucky Strike
cigarettes based on their
method of production.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
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How do you create and distribute your stuff? What do you do differently in the initial
stages, during production, at the point of creation or during distribution?
If you dont yet do anything different here, but your curiosity is piqued, let me ask you
this: what different method or process of production would your prospects respond
well to? Further, is your competition failing in the way they create their products as
Apple has been publicly scorned for their overseas factories and could you swoop in to
not only differentiate but look like a real hero by simply producing your stuff with more
integrity?
SAAS
Fog Creek Software is the perfect example of producing things differently. Founder Joel
Spolsky commits to this differentiator because he truly believes in it, as hes made clear
on his blog repeatedly but especially in this now-famous article that introduced the Joel
Test.
As a result, people who choose solutions by Fog Creek like Trello know theyre
getting great software built by an inspired team. By removing the barriers programmers
face, Fog Creek becomes the place to look if you want software thats produced better.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com

While many apps exist to help runners measure their pace or feed runners upbeat
music, Cruise Control is the one stand-out app that is based on the science of
biomechanics. Its algorithm, created by PhDs, makes pace control subconscious.
The Valve Games approach is this: When you give smart talented people the freedom to
create without fear of failure, amazing things happen. With this approach to creating
their products comes better production processes and freer creativity, which has helped
the company create not only games but also a game engine and a social entertainment
platform.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
HARD GOODS
While countless apparel manufacturers and retailers are
producing their clothing overseas, American Apparel
manages every aspect of their apparel production from a
single building in downtown Los Angeles. In that one large
space, they design, cut, sew, dye, finish and market their
clothes.
By controlling all aspects of clothing production, sales and
distribution, American Apparel can guarantee what their
competitors famously cant: sweatshop-free production.
SERVICES
Postable helps customers produce thank-you cards easily. Select a beautiful card design,
type out what you want to, and theyll do the rest. Here the difference in production is
very customer-centric (rather than company process-oriented).
Victors & Spoils is a creative agency that has a different way of developing creative for
clients: they crowdsource it. A world of designers and writers signs up with Victors &
2013 Joanna Wiebe
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Spoils to get notified of new opportunities and then, when a brief is posted, submits
ideas for consideration. Creatives get the chance to win amazing clients, and clients get
the benefit of diverse and hungry creatives not a tired creative department
producing their advertisements.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
YOUR TURN
Complete the next set of questions in your Differentiation Interview. By this point, you
may be starting to see areas where you can think about differentiating your business in
the hearts and minds of your prospects.
IS THIS SOMETHING
UNIQUE OR
DIFFERENT FOR US?
6
WHO internally/externally
makes our product or delivers
our service?

Why or how?
6.1
What is unique or interesting

about the PEOPLE that
created this product (e.g.,
about our team or founders)?
Why does this difference

matter to our audience?
How do we MAKE the product

or DELIVER the service?
Which of my competitors
use the same method of
production or service
delivery?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
MIGHT THIS BE A
DIFFERENTIATOR
WORTH
PURSUING?
8.
Different Price
DIFFERENTIATING BY PRICE doesnt always mean being the low cost leader. It can also
mean standing apart as a more expensive option than the incumbent or most popular
solution in your category. In fact, the concept of high price equals good is a persuasion
tactic taught by the bright folks at Human Factors International and, well, your friends
here at Copy Hackers.
If this were a chapter on differentiating yourself by being uber-cheap or free, I would
have had a very hard time including it in this startup guide to differentiation. So you can
be sure the following pages wont be filled with examples of the Wal-Marts of the world.
Not that theres anything wrong with being a low cost leader. Id just rather help startup
founders like you find ways to make money without having to scramble and scratch for
every dime.
Cheap stuff often sells itself. Lets work on the harder sells, shall we?
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
These examples showcase how and when to differentiate by being free, being the least
expensive or being notably expensive.
SAAS
Although Mint leads with ease as its primary message and is known for its gorgeous
designs, its hard to imagine that Mint would have grown as popular as it did, pre-Intuit
acquisition, if consumers had had to pay for it. Mint may not lead with free as its key
differentiator, but it comes through loudly twice in the top half of the home page.

With 100s of password apps more than half of them being free why would anyone
pay $8.99 for 1Password? Further, why would one of the most expensive password
management apps available make it to the top 20 apps in late May 2013? People can get
similar apps for free. But they pay more for solutions that only foolish people would get
for free, like password management and security.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
But if its true that people are more willing to pay for important stuff like secure ways
to keep track of their passwords why are the free anti-virus solutions always more
popular than the paid ones? Brand recognition goes a long way. AVG AntiVirus is a wellreputed company in the online protection space, and so their free product is instantly
more appealing than that of an unknown contender.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
One might hypothesize that if your visitors trust your brand, they will be more likely to
seek out your free product; if your visitors dont know you or your brand, they will be
more likely to seek out your paid product as being a paying customer gives customers
the perception of recourse in the event something goes amiss.
HARD GOODS
If its important to show your partner you cant put a price on your love, buying him or
her something from Tiffany sends the message loud and clear. Like Chanel and Rolls
Royce, Tiffany is a brand steeped in the classic belief the poor and the wealthy share:
things that are expensive are, more often than not, better.
Virtually every commodity has a low cost leader and a luxury offering. Brands that
differentiate as the more expensive option and are beloved for it include:
Apple computers
Cristal champagne
Gucci anything
Mont Blanc pens
Rolex watches
SERVICES
It is the rare web-based or mobile consumer service that can get consumers to pay for
their service. But there are cases in which charging consumers for your online service
may actually work better than giving it away free, such as:
When your visitor is highly motivated to get the outcome of your service
When youre selling a network or means of connecting, and your visitor believes
that charging will keep out the penny-pinchers they wouldnt want to connect
with or the window-shoppers who arent as serious about connecting as they are
When the free leader is known for doing a poor job of providing great service
When your visitor has more money than they do time and thus is willing to pay
for services that eliminate time-wasting hassles
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Examples, you ask? Absolutely!

TheLadders attracts highly motivated job seekers of a certain income level. These are
people who meet three of the four criteria above: they want the outcome fast; they
know that free sites are filled with McDonalds jobs; and they have more money than
time.
Until very recently, eHarmony was the one dating site targeted at the masses that
charged its users to connect. As of May 2013, eHarmony is still a paid matching service
largely because their users are highly motivated to find a match and are trying to avoid
penny-pinchers and window-shoppers but, as more free competitors enter the space
and do a good job while growing their brand awareness, eHarmony has had to adjust
slightly. eHarmony continues to charge but has started to offer free communication.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Finally, Angies List does the unthinkable in price differentiation. It lets

contractors/businesses list themselves for free and it charges visitors/consumers to
find those contractors and leave reviews from them. All the other guys, like Yelp, let
both businesses and consumers use their site free of charge.
The Angies List promise is reviews you can trust. The way they follow through on that
promise is tied directly to their payment model, which prevents anonymous reviews and
gaming the system by ensuring only the most motivated reviewers those willing to
pay leave a review. You use Angies List because you can trust the reviews, and you
can trust the reviews because people had to pay to leave them.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
9.
Different Worldview
WHERE DO YOU SIT in the global community? Your point of view as a business owner or
the way your business looks at the world could be an interesting vantage from which to
begin differentiating yourself. Your different worldview could be:
You want to make the world a happier place

You support developing countries
You help inner-city kids
You support education and/or education reform
You help underrepresented and/or misrepresented groups
You oppose animal testing
You live and work green
You believe in the power of people, community, love
You empower individuals to be their best selves
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Think The Body Shop, which has claimed and backed an against animal testing slogan
for years. Think Lu Lu Lemon Apparel, which, although recently less committed to fair
production practices, has believably advocated a yogic lifestyle.
Now, unlike building a new Feature into your product, differentiating based on your
Worldview or on social consciousness isnt something you can say youre going to do,
do once and then never think about again. It takes at least the same level of dedication
as Customer Focus. Its behind everything you do. It has to be. Because when you claim
to be socially conscious, people get decidedly critical of actions that run counter to that
claim.
The businesses that have successfully differentiated based on their worldview generally
have this in common: this differentiator rises organically from their core product or
service. It doesnt seem forced. It doesnt seem engineered. It is distinctly opposed to
cause marketing, where your not-for-profit efforts in fact help you profit; it is not a
marketing initiative but something that makes your businesss heartbeat.
Rallies are not just sponsored by you; you create the rally. You dont just donate a
percentage of your profits; you have a product/SKU for which you send all profits to a
non-profit. It is not one act of charity; doing right by others is in your business DNA.
Do you have something to defend?
Might your product support that defense?
Does it make sense for your startup to take part in the defense?
If your reason for existing reflects your worldview, perhaps this is how you can be
different and feel satisfied (compared to differentiating by, say, price).
SAAS
Kickstarter is a fantastic way to finance cool new businesses and projects, but their focus
is rarely on humanitarian lending or funding. Kiva has offered microlending and
crowdfunding for developing countries, but those transactions are largely facilitated by
intermediaries that charge interest.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Enter Zidisha, which differentiates itself as a microlending service focused on

entrepreneurs in developing countries. For people who want to invest in up-and-coming
business ideas without further taxing the strained finances of those they back, Zidisha
exists.

If you want to make the world a happier place, youre likely to create apps that help you
reach that goal. Tiny Hearts is an award-winning software studio that creates beautiful,
playful and useful apps for the young and young at heart. Their flagship app is Pocket
Zoo, a portable zoo for kids; it held the #1 Education app spot in 2010.
HARD GOODS
If any startup has done a fantastic job turning a worldview differentiator into the force
of growth behind their business, its TOMS Shoes & Eyewear. For every pair of shoes or
eyeglasses you or I buy from TOMS, they give a pair to a person in need.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Canadas Matt&Nat promises that they are more than a bag

company. They make vegan-friendly products that make even
non-vegans feel good. Their faux leather is made of recycled
plastic; and they offer employees eight hours of paid volunteer
time each month.
On the luxury end of the apparel continuum, Atelier360 brings
only artisan, sustainable fashion to the world.
Their products preserve local economies and a manufactured
with environmental, economic and social responsibility front of
mind.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
KEETSA mattresses are an eco-friendly solution in an industry filled with chemicals, high
carbon footprints and waste. They live their worldview by using only green products and
greener production processes for their mattresses and they take it further, like most
companies with a unique worldview to donate money to important causes, like
Operation Smile.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
SERVICES
Finally, Apartment Therapy is on a mission to save the world, one room at a time. Unlike
other home dcor and style sites, Apartment Therapy offers its readers lifestyle-focused
green living in an effort to help them build their own good life.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
YOUR TURN
Complete the FINAL set of questions in your Differentiation Interview.
IS THIS SOMETHING
UNIQUE OR
DIFFERENT FOR US?
8
What do we CHARGE?
Why is this price attractive to

our audience?
What is our point of view,

perspective or WORLDVIEW?
Why does our audience

care?
9.1
How are we socially

conscious?

Why or how?
9.2
How are we environmentally

conscious?

Why or how?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
MIGHT THIS BE A
DIFFERENTIATOR
WORTH
PURSUING?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Messaging Your Differentiators

WEVE EXPLORED a range of companies large and small differentiating in specific ways.
But, along our journey through these differentiators, this has surely stood out: not all
companies differentiate on one thing alone. It may be easier for prospects, customers
and investors to understand companies that commit to one differentiator as TOMS
does so well but there are many companies that provide two or more points of value
in unique ways. And these companies are likely to want to message all of them.
Take, for example, Zoobean, a startup dedicated to finding better books for kids by
letting parents curate the collections. This startup differentiates based on three things:
1. NICHE / MARKET Theyre selling kids books.
2. PEOPLE Their collections are curated by people who should know best: parents.
3. WORLDVIEW Theyre committed to a greater diversity of books for kids, so we
might raise fewer Pecola Breedloves and more balanced kids who can love their
differences.
But which of these differentiators makes it into Zoobeans primary messaging?

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Zoobean leads with their market in the first half of their home page headline. Follows
that up with their people in the second half. And much later on the site explores their
worldview, but not in specific ways.
Are they ordering their differentiators in a way thats likely to bring them more
customers and get those customers to stick around, buy again and recommend them?
When TechCrunch wrote about them in 2013, TechCrunch identified Zoobeans most
intriguing differentiator as their worldview; after all, refining your search on Amazon
can help you find books for kids so it seems to be a slight miss to lead with the broad
market theyre targeting. Perhaps Zoobean opens with the phrase Remarkable Books
in an effort to hint at the quality of their books and, in turn, speak to their worldview
but is hinting at your differentiator a good messaging strategy?
Questions abound. How do you message your differentiator(s) on the page? Should you
message more than one differentiator? Does your key differentiator need to be
messaged prominently? Do all your differentiators need to be messaged? Do any of
them? Lets work through those questions here.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
How Do You Message Your Differentiators? Show and Tell!

One of the best pieces of copywriting advice I will ever give you and one that only the
wisest people follow is to put important messages clearly on the page.
Theres this sense that its inelegant or too aggressive to write copy that uses real words
and straightforward language to express the things you want people to know, things
visitors to your site need to know. People in business have come to learn about the
creative writers show dont tell rule and have, in turn, applied that to their web copy,
email copy and display ads. Unfortunately, when you only show people whats
different about you, your brand or your solution, you leave a lot to interpretation. And
guess what! Your visitors are too damn busy to interpret your copy. Its not your visitors
job to figure out what youre trying to say; its your job to help them move easily
through your site without their brains interrupting and sending them off-course.
Is it any wonder we lead with explainer videos on so many home pages? Explainer
videos give you the right and the words to explain what you do, to show your
prospects what you do and tell them what you do. Your web copy should be allowed the
same rights your explainer videos have. You need to show and tell in your copy.
Your differentiator(s) will help people know why they should choose you. Thats
reason number one to focus on differentiating, after all. (Additional reasons, as youve
surely noted throughout this book, include making it easier for you to know what
products to create, what features to add and where to market your solution.)
If you dont tell people whats different about you, how are they supposed to know?
So put your differences on the page. Show people whats different about you and tell
them, too. That means:
1. SHOW: Describe the benefits of using your solution, with images to support these
benefits-focused messages
2. TELL: Describe the ways people will arrive at said benefits, with references to
specific things that differentiate you

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
State Your Differentiator Dont Just Imply It

Lets say that youre differentiating by people. Youve got a dating site, and that dating
site is run by matchmakers and analysts, who work together to use profile data to
inform the matches they make.
With that in mind, lets write a section of copy that shows and tells whats different
about you and why your visitors should care:
Because Finding True Love Is Both an Art and a Science Its Not the Result of Mindlessly Scrolling Through 100s of Profiles
Traditional dating sites dont work because they leave the entire job of finding
love in your hands.
Heres a better approach. We analyse your profile, compare it to our database of
possible matches, and apply the art of matchmaking to create your ultimate
shortlist. No guesswork. Just a perfect meeting of science and art.
The subhead begins to show whats desirably different about you. And the body copy
tells by getting into details about what makes you so different.
Notice how the subhead focuses on a visitor pain and begins to connect that to the
solution without yet getting into the core of the difference. The body copy then gets
very specific about the difference between this site and other sites, explicitly referencing
whats wrong with their competition and explicitly drawing the visitor to learn about a
better approach. Nothing is implied. The copy holds the visitors hand through an
explanation of the current state of the industry and the weaknesses of existing
solutions. Perhaps below this section we would offer a block of copy that proves that
traditional dating sites dont work alongside a block of copy that expands on the roles of
analysts and matchmakers.
But your differentiators need not live only in body copy or deeper in your site.
You may want to test leading with your differentiator as a headline. In the example of
the dating site, we might test a headline that speaks to whats different about you:

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Let Acclaimed Matchmakers & Pro Data Geeks

Match You Based on Art and Science
Note that were not giving everything away in this headline. We are rather grabbing the
attention of our visitors by speaking to what we do 1) uniquely that 2) they want. If we
get their attention with that headline, we can lure them deeper into the page to answer
the two big points we often talk about at Copy Hackers:
1. So what? Tell people why they should care
2. Prove it Prove that youre not full of BS using supporting explanations, videos
and screenshots
Does Your Key Differentiator Need to Be Messaged Prominently?

The goal of this book is to help you arrive at one solid differentiator for your startup.
Doing so feeds naturally into a major messaging opportunity for small businesses: the
value proposition.
A value proposition, or a unique selling proposition (USP), is a succinctly stated and
memorable message that describes whats specifically and desirably different about
your solution. Essentially, your value prop amplifies your key differentiator. At Copy
Hackers, we often recommend that startups test their value prop as their home page
headline because, outside of their blog, their home page is often their primary landing
page for new visitors and new visitors in particular need to know whats desirably
different about a company theyve barely heard of.
We recently tested our theory about value props as headlines. Well, to be clear, weve
tested this theory repeatedly for multiple clients, but we recently decided to do a metatest in which we tested value props as headlines across 11 startup sites. The outcomes
of this meta-test were:
A win rate of 9 out of 11 tests
An average lift of 33% across all 11 tests, including the losers
An average lift of 40% across the 9 winning tests
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Validation that a value prop can work wonders as a home

page headline for a range of startups
If youre interested in testing your differentiator in your home
page headline, check out Copy Hackers: The Great Value
Proposition Test to see our step-by-step process for arriving at
headlines worth testing and the scorecard we used to grade
value prop options. Get it here
Do You Need to Message Every Differentiator Youve Got?

Should you message more than one differentiator? Do all your differentiators need to
be messaged? Do any of them? Which ones go where?
The challenge of figuring out which differentiator to lead with often makes messaging
your differences a pain. We saw this earlier with Zoobean, where they led with two
differentiators in their home page and dramatically subordinated the one that
TechCrunch identified as their single unique differentiator. Might they do better to lead
with their worldview?
The answer, it shouldnt surprise you to read, is to test it. Only testing your various
differentiators whats different about you, how you word those differences and the
prominence of those messages will help you arrive at a strong understanding of what
your prospects most strongly desire.
Final Tips about Messaging Your Differentiators

TONE: Make sure how you message your differences matches what your
differences are. For example, if youre differentiating by niche youre targeting
hockey players use language and phrasing that matches the way they speak. If
youre differentiating by worldview youre trying to make the world a happy
place avoid negativity.
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
MESSAGING PRICE: Its unlikely that youll want to use words like cheap or
expensive to help your visitors understand that youre a lower-cost or highercost solution. When it comes to messaging cheap, you could use words like
affordable, budget-happy, wallet-friendly, inexpensive or cost-effective. If youve
got a fun tone that your visitors respond well to, you could go so far as to write el
cheapo to describe your affordable solution or even the people who seek your
affordable solution out.
TAGLINE: If you want a tagline or slogan, consider including your key
differentiator in your tagline. At Copy Hackers, our key differentiator is that were
focused entirely on startups (i.e., niche), and that is the core of our tagline: Where
startups learn to write copy.
BE YOU FOCUSED: Yes, youre communicating whats unique about you but
that doesnt mean you should write Were different because. As in all good
copywriting, ensure that whenever you message your differentiators, youre
doing so from the perspective of your prospect. Avoid we. Use you.
TRY NEGATIVE: Some of the stickiest messages are negative twists rather than
positive statements. For example, 7-Up differentiated in the highly competitive
soda world as The Uncola; another example is Buckleys cough syrup, which made
a name for itself by claiming it Tastes awful. And it works. Messaging youre not
something can be more believable and memorable than messaging that you are
something; if youre trying to sell gamified accounting software, you might
message choose unboring accounting instead of choose fun accounting.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
In thinking strategically about your differentiators, youve already got a leg up on

most if not all of your competition. Youre more likely to consider what makes you
different when youre creating marketing campaigns, writing copy, creating new
solutions, naming those solutions, writing press releases and pitching your startup to
investors. So go finish your worksheets and start differentiating!
The Buffer Pitch

When Leo Widrich and Joel Gasciogne were pitching Buffer to investors,
communicating how they were different from their competition was among their
two most important tasks (more here). Like your prospects, VCs will want to
know what makes you desirably different.

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
YOUR FINAL ACTION ITEM

Have your completed Differentiation Interview handy and, with it, refer now to the
worksheet titled What Makes Us Different & Better. Your completed interview should
have revealed at least one way if not a handful of ways that you may be able to
stand out in your customers minds and hearts. Looking at the two rightmost columns of
the interview, note the ones where you indicated positively, with a yes or an X or
whatever you used, in both columns; this or these will vie for the position of key
differentiator for you.
Of course, there are more ways to differentiate than just the nine discussed in this book,
so perhaps youve landed on a solid differentiator all on your own. Thats cool too.
OUR KEY DIFFERENTIATOR
What we will differentiate based on
Is this differentiator already in place
or built-in?
Why is this right for us?
Why is this right for our audience?
Tactics well take to prove this difference
Our value proposition or
unique selling proposition
SUPPORTING WAYS OF DIFFERENTIATING

Secondary point of differentiation
Other points of differentiation
Will our audience be persuaded by these
differentiators? Why or how?
Tactics well take to prove these
differentiators
OPPORTUNITIES OR NEW WAYS TO DIFFERENTIATE IN TIME

Biggest opportunity
Why is this a big opportunity?
What will we do to make it happen?
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
All brand features referenced within are protected by applicable trademark, copyright and other intellectual
property laws.
37signals. http://37signals.com/
Airbnb. https://www.airbnb.ca/
Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Ereader-ebook-reader/
American Apparel. http://www.americanapparel.com/
Angies List. http://www.angieslist.com/
AOptix. http://www.aoptix.com/
Apartment Therapy. http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/
App Store. http://www.apple.com/
Atelier360. http://atelier360.com/
AVG AntiVirus. http://free.avg.com/ca-en/homepage
Aviary. http://aviary.com
Bespoke Innovations Inc. http://www.bespokeinnovations.com/
Blue Print Juice. http://blueprintjuice.com/
Christian Louboutin. http://us.christianlouboutin.com/us_en/
Cruise Control. http://www.cruisecontrolrun.com/
eHarmony. http://www.eharmony.com/home/ft/direct/
Fixya. http://www.fixya.com/
Fog Creek Software. http://www.fogcreek.com/
GameChanger. http://www.gamechanger.io/
Geeks Dream Girl. http://geeksdreamgirl.com/
Human Business Works. http://www.humanbusinessworks.com/
Jetpac. https://www.jetpac.com/
Kayak. http://www.ca.kayak.com/
KEETSA. http://keetsa.com/
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Kidaptive. http://www.kidaptive.com/about-us/team.html
Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority. http://www.lvcva.com/
LL Bean. http://www.llbean.com/
MarketStarter. http://www.marketstarter.co/
Matt&Nat. http://www.mattandnat.ca/
Mercedes Benz image.
http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/sedans/1302_2014_mercedes_benz_e63_amg_first_drive/photo_27.ht
ml
Meridian. http://www.meridianapps.com/
Meridian image. http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/15/indoor-mapping-startup-meridian-adds-notification-zonesto-their-strategy/
Mint. https://www.mint.com/
Optimizely. https://www.optimizely.com/
Postable. https://www.postable.com/
Postach.io. http://postach.io/
Realmac Software. http://www.realmacsoftware.com/
Salesforce. http://www.salesforce.com/
Stained Glass Labs. http://stainedglasslabs.com/
TheLadders. http://www.theladders.com/
Tinder. http://www.gotinder.com/
Tiny Hearts. http://tinyhearts.com/
TOMS Shoes & Eyewear. http://www.toms.ca/
TransferWise. http://transferwise.com/
Unhaggle. http://www.unhaggle.com/
Valve Games. http://www.valvesoftware.com/index.html
VerbalizeIt. https://www.verbalizeit.com/
2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com
Victors & Spoils. http://www.victorsandspoils.com/

Volkswagen Beetle advertisement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Small
WestJet. http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/about/
Zendesk. http://www.zendesk.com/
Zidisha. http://www.zidisha.com/
Zoobean. https://www.zoobean.com/
ZooZ. http://www.zooz.com/

2013 Joanna Wiebe
www.CopyHackers.com

The Startup Guide To Differentiation

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COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 1

2013 Joanna Wiebe

ABOUT COPY HACKERS

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 2

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 3

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 4

Why You Need to Be Different or Better

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 7

The easiest to assemble

Certified by more groups

Before You Start Pulling Ideas Out of a Hat

STARTING POINT A: ALL ABOUT YOU

Whos my target marketing, audience or niche?

Could It Be That Youre Totally, 100% the Same?

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 10

THESE EBOOKS COMPLEMENT

Your First Action Item

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 12

What others in our space

Name three (3) niches in this

Which one (1) of these

How do we offer outstanding

Which of our competitors

WHAT do we serve our

Which others market the

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 13

How is our product or service

How do we know our

What is our one (1) unique

What key problem does this

What is most INNOVATIVE

Which of our competitors

HOW do we serve our

How is the way we serve

Which of our competitors

What is unique or interesting

Why does this difference

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 14

How do we MAKE the product

Why is this price attractive to

What is our point of view,

Why does our audience

How are we socially

Which of our competitors

How are we environmentally

Which of our competitors

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 15

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 16

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 19

DOWNLOADS & INSTALLS

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 20

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 21

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 23

More Takes on Differentiating by Market, Segment or Niche

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 24

Isnt This Just Market Segmentation, Joanna?

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 25

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 27

users in over 30 countries. Heres what

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 29

DOWNLOADS & INSTALLS

COPY HACKERS The Startup Guide to Differentiation 31

NOW ITS YOUR TURN