7 Keys to Marketing Genius: Only One
The following is an excerpt from The 7 Keys to Marketing Genius by Michael Daehn
Do not panic if you find only one unique strength that can be considered a competitive advantage. Be thankful you have one at all. Many find through this process that they have none. There is the threat of the competition catching up to you when you only have one area of expertise, but marketing an company or product is actually simplified by having one dominant advantage instead of trying to communicate multiple messages at the same time.
Some companies find that they began by capitalizing on a unique strength, but have since strayed away from their original competitive advantage. This loss of focus on their core will catch up with the company. Companies cannot keep their position in the market without maintaining a competitive advantage, even if they are able to survive for a time on the returns from earlier success.
In one case I facilitated a SWOT analysis for a private university. The school is located in the heavily populated Orange County area of Southern California. We determined that one of the distinct strengths the school had over the competition was the location of the campus on a beautiful green hill away from the congestion of the surrounding cities. Comparable schools in the area were all located in the middle of busy streets and intersections. Few others had the same amount of green space as this university. For the competition to copy the advantage of this university they would have to purchase and tear down neighboring commercial areas and turn them into grassy knolls. This is a difficult if not impossible proposition for them, which makes this feature a distinct competitive advantage for the university. Right now the university is in the process of developing much of the green space and putting up new buildings. While the university has other strengths and advantages, I am curious to see how this will affect their ability to compete in the future since they are removing one of their only irreplaceable and irreproducible competitive advantages.