A Great Example Of Differentiating In A Highly Competitive Market
Tim Fitzpatrick
MSP & B2B Professional Service Firm Marketing Consultant/Advisor | Fractional CMO | Build and manage your marketing engine to get where you want to go faster. | Remove Your Revenue Roadblocks
In a world where most companies blend into their markets, DriveTime has found a way to stand out in the highly competitive used car industry. The power of differentiation is absolutely critical to staying ahead. But in such a crowded space, finding a unique edge can be challenging. Today, I'm going to break down some of DriveTime's commercials to show how they've crafted distinctive message that not only sets them apart, but creates a competitive advantage. Lessons that you can apply in your own business.
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A Great Example Of Differentiating In A Highly Competitive Market
In a world where most companies blend into their markets, DriveTime has found a way to stand out in the highly competitive used car industry. The power of differentiation is absolutely critical to staying ahead. But in such a crowded space, finding a unique edge can be challenging. Today, I'm going to break down some of DriveTime's commercials to show how they've crafted distinctive message that not only sets them apart, but creates a competitive advantage. Lessons that you can apply in your own business.
Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe you must remove your revenue roadblocks to accelerate growth, and marketing shouldn't be difficult. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in.
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Now, I am not in the market for buying a used vehicle, but I keep seeing these DriveTime commercials. They are very clever. They're very well done. They're memorable. They help differentiate DriveTime from their competitors. So I decided to share some of these things that they're doing well so that you can apply these same techniques in your business. I see companies struggling to differentiate and create a competitive advantage all the time. And hopefully, this real-world example will help bring some things to light for you so that you can apply these same techniques within your own business.
The Most Common Problems in Buying a Used Car
So let's think about this first. What are some of the most common problems in buying a used car? When I think about this, and these may not be applicable to everybody, but in general, what are some of the most common problems? Getting financing for some people. Finding the right monthly payment. How much is my payment going to be? How much can I afford? It's to your credit. Every time you go look at a car, If you start to talk to them, they run your credit to see what you might be able to qualify for, and they're hitting your credit. And all those credit hits can negatively impact your credit score. Haggling over price. Nobody likes doing it. We've made jokes about this for years, right? But every time you go in to buy a used car, you're worried, stressed about having to haggle over price. And related to that, high pressure sales tactics. They suck. Nobody wants any of these things, right? But those are the common problems that we see when shopping for a used car.
Real-world DriveTime Commercial Examples
Now, what I want to do is play two of their commercials. If you're watching, you'll be able to see these, and you can find these on YouTube. If you're listening, you'll still be able to hear these. I'm going to play two separate commercials. So here's the first one.
"At drivetime.com, we've been hard at work. And we finally did it. Did you make it so I can finally see my real payments and shop a thousands of cars with no hit to my credit? Wait, yes. You can go to drivetime.com and get approved. With no credit hit. Shop for cars and customize your own payments with no credit hit. Look, look. There's a slidey thingy. I'm changing my own payments. I feel strong. Shop for cars with no credit hit. Grandma, they did it. DriveTime finally did it. Shop for cars online with no credit hit at DriveTime.com."
Okay, so there's the first one. Now, let's look at the second one.
"DriveTime has a big announcement. An even easier way to buy a car. You make the deal yourself. I make the deal myself. It's the DriveTime Real Deal maker. I can't, I'm too excited. It lets you customize the real down payment and monthly payment of the car you want to buy. I make the deal myself? It's your car. You should make the deal you want. You can customize terms on literally thousands of cars in no time. The deal you make on your phone is the deal you pay. You make the deal yourself. Let's go. Get the real deal at drivetime.com"
Okay, So just played two of those commercials. There's others as well if you were entertained by those. But so look at those differentiators that they're starting to bring to the surface in both of those commercials.
The first one that comes to mind is getting approved online with no credit hit. Getting approved online with no credit hit. As I go through these, you're seeing that they're solving some of these common problems that people experience when buying a used car. They're talking about customizing your own payment. In the first commercial, one of the guys talks about feeling strong. They're bringing an emotion here. You feel strong, you feel confident, which is not how a lot of people feel when they go to buy a used car. So they're bringing a motion in. They're doing a really great job there.
Then in the second commercial, they talk about the real deal maker. They're branding this differentiator where you make the deal yourself. Again, you set your payments, you set what your down payment is going to be. You're making the deal yourself.
Now, if you go to their website, you'll see a lot of this stuff also transferring over to their website. They're talking about getting your personalized down payment and monthly payment with no credit hit. So if I watch the commercial and then I go to their website, that's a seamless and consistent transfer from one channel to the next. The message is similar. It's not different. I'm not wondering like, whoa, I saw this commercial and now I'm not seeing... Now I'm seeing something different on their website. It's seamless. Really, really strong. Flexible financing makes it easy to find terms that fit your budget. So they're obviously catering towards people that may have a hard time. Maybe they have lower credit, right? They're having a hard time qualifying for financing. That is a market that they are definitely going after, and they are creating a competitive differentiation around around common problems that buyers that are in that particular situation may be experiencing. So they have done a really, really good job. And then not only that, I mean, the commercials are... Nobody likes to sit down and watch commercials, but they're at least somewhat entertaining. They're funny, they're comical, they're bringing humor into it. So they're doing a really good job in a very competitive market.
How to Create a Competitive Advantage
So how can you do this yourself? Creating your competitive advantage element. I believe you should be shooting for three to five different competitive advantage elements within your business. You want to make sure that they check three boxes. You want to make sure that what you're saying is true, that it's relevant, and it's proofable. If you think about what DriveTime is talking about, it is true. It's relevant to their clients, the clients that they're going after that may have a hard time with financing, maybe they have poor credit. And it's proofable. I mean, it's there to see. So you want to make sure whatever you're saying is true, relevant, and proofable for it to be a strong competitive advantage element. And what you can do, the easiest place to start brainstorming for your competitive advantage elements is how can you save clients time? How can you help them save or make money? How can you reduce risk? How can you eliminate hassles. Those are four really simple places to start flushing out ideas of potential competitive advantage elements that you can start using to differentiate business from your competitors.
Conclusion
So I hope you found this real-world example helpful just to see, look, how are other companies doing this? DriveTime. Look, nobody's perfect, but I think that they are doing a really good job. They're entertaining commercials, and they're hitting on competitive advantage elements that are really important to their ideal market. So hopefully you can take that, apply those same lessons to your business, and start creating competitive advantage elements developments for your business that will help you differentiate from your competitors.
Thank you for watching and tuning in. Again, I am Tim Fitzpatrick. If you want to connect with us, you can do that over at rialtomarketing.com or at revenueroadblockscorecard.com, you can find out which of the nine revenue roadblocks are slowing down your growth. Those are nine of the revenue roadblocks that we help clients remove as part of the process of building their marketing engine. So if you want to know which of the nine are slowing down your growth, go do that over at revenueroadblockscorecard.com. Takes less than five minutes. Thank you again. Until next time. Take care.