Me-Too Positioning Gets Ignored: How to Differentiate When Your Product Sounds Like Everyone Else's

To differentiate in a crowded market, pick one specific thing you do differently for one specific kind of customer, say it plainly, and prove it. If a competitor could put your headline on their site unchanged, you don't have positioning yet. You have a category description.

A consultant I spoke with recently, who works with the analysts and experts buyers rely on, said it directly. Those experts won't be very effective for you if you're a me-too player. If you struggle to differentiate, you'll have a hard time with them.

The same is true for buyers. And for the AI tools buyers now ask for recommendations.

Why me-too happens

Nobody sets out to sound like everyone else. It happens because teams look at competitors, see what they say, and try to match it. "They say fast and easy, so we'd better say fast and easy too."

Do that for a few years and every company in the category has the same homepage. Same benefits. Same buzzwords. Different logo.

What it costs you

When buyers can't tell vendors apart, they fall back on three things:

• Price. The cheapest one wins.
• Brand. The biggest one wins.
• The status quo. Nobody wins.

If you're not the cheapest or the biggest, me-too positioning leaves you with nothing to stand on.

Where real differentiation usually comes from

It's rarely a feature. Features get copied. Real differences tend to come from:

• A customer you serve best. A segment, size or industry where you're clearly the right fit.
• A problem others ignore. Something your competitors treat as an edge case.
• An approach with trade-offs. You do it a different way, which is better for some buyers and worse for others.

Trade-offs are good. A position that admits who it's not for is more believable than one that claims to be for everyone.

Find yours in what customers say

Ask your best recent customers one question: why did you pick us over the alternatives? Not what they like. Why they chose.

Their answers are often different from your messaging. That gap is useful. The thing customers mention most, that your site doesn't say, is probably your real difference.

Test it with the swap test

Take your homepage headline and imagine it on your closest competitor's site. If it still works, rewrite it. Keep going until it only makes sense for you.

Say it where buyers compare

The best place to state a difference is where buyers are comparing. Comparison pages and alternatives pages force you to be specific. You can't write "us versus them" with vague claims, because the reader sees both side by side.

Write those pages truthfully. Name where the competitor is a better fit. Buyers trust that, and it makes your real strengths more believable.

Signs you have me-too positioning

• Prospects ask "so how are you different from…?" on almost every call.
• You win mostly on price or relationships.
• Your homepage headline could go on three competitors' sites.
• Analysts, partners and AI tools describe you only by your category.

A worked example

Say you sell scheduling software. "The easiest way to manage your team's schedule" is me-too; every competitor says something like it. Now say your best customers turn out to be multi-location clinics that struggle with last-minute staff swaps. "Scheduling for multi-location clinics, built around last-minute swaps" names a customer, a problem and an approach. A clinic manager recognizes herself in it. A general retailer knows it's not for them. That's what positioning is supposed to do.

What to do this week

Run the swap test on your homepage headline. Then send one email to your five best customers asking why they picked you over the alternatives. Compare their answers to your headline.

Why this matters more now

Buyers increasingly ask AI tools for recommendations. Those tools describe you based on what you and others publish. If you sound like everyone else, the tool has no reason to name you for a specific situation. A clear position gives it one.

Common mistakes

• Differentiating on a feature. Features get copied within a release or two.
• Trying to be for everyone. A position that excludes no one persuades no one.
• Hiding trade-offs. Buyers trust a vendor that says who it isn't for.

Positioning is a choice. Make it on purpose.

See where buyers compare you

Comparison and alternatives searches are where differentiation shows up, or doesn't. The 15-minute traffic check shows which of those searches you're missing today.

See the traffic you're missing. BoFu, Baby builds bottom-of-funnel content engines for B2B companies: 15 money pages and 15 supporting posts in 90 days, built to rank on Google and get you named by ChatGPT. See what you're missing.