Most of us are too close to our own product to recognize what makes it valuable to others.
It’s like calling your hometown “boring” until a group of tourists shows up, cameras out, enjoying every detail you overlook. It’s the classic blind spot of proximity. What’s obvious to you might be exactly what your market needs to hear.
B2B marketers fall into this trap often. We know our products too well. We focus on how they work instead of why people choose them. We chase performance and features and forget to carve out uniqueness.
Being better is subjective. Being different is strategic.
The goal of this guide is to help you stop obsessing over the competition and start building a competitive differentiation strategy that is sharp, actionable, and built to win deals.
Step 1: Audit Your Market Position and Competitor Landscape
Even if your company is smaller than the big names in your category, there are usually overlooked advantages hiding in plain sight.
Start by listing the top three to five solutions that your prospects would group you with, not the ones you internally consider competitors. Think of the brands that are widely known or commonly referenced in your space.
Then identify the one or two features or use cases that make your product stickier than expected. These don’t need to be flashy. They just need to resonate with your most successful customers.
Use AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to speed this up. For example, prompt:
“Summarize [Competitor]’s homepage messaging and compare it to ours. What do they emphasize that we don’t?”
Or:
“Analyze this feature adoption table. Which features are most used by power users and which are underutilized?”
The goal is to step outside your internal assumptions and surface real, user-backed differentiators.
For a more specialized tool, look into options like Crayon or Kompyte, which were both specifically built for competitive differentiation.
Step 2: Use Data to Define and Prove Your Differentiation
A clear Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is not optional. It is your differentiation in motion.
Revisit your UVP and ask:
- Does it clearly state who you help, what problem you solve, and why you do it better or differently?
- Do you have data to support that promise?
Companies like Gong and growlink do this well. You know who they serve and how they help within seconds of landing on their homepage.
Use AI to help scan the homepage H1s of your top competitors. What words do they use over and over? What themes are they leaning on?
Frameworks like Porter’s Five Forces or Blue Ocean Strategy can give structure to this analysis:
- If every competitor focuses on “all-in-one,” that might signal high rivalry.
- If none emphasize trust or compliance, that may be a gap you can own.
This is not about avoiding the crowded part of the market. It’s about finding the angle nobody else is working.
Step 3: Amplify Your Positioning Through the Right Channels
Once you know your story, make sure you’re telling it in the right places.
Your job is not to be loud. Your job is to be relevant in the spaces where your audience is already paying attention.
Skip the vanity playbook. Popularity metrics can be misleading. What matters is whether your messaging connects and converts.
Brand authenticity beats polish. That’s why platforms like Duolingo and ClickUp win with voice and personality. They show up in ways that feel human.
Use tools like SparkToro or hands-on community listening to understand where your audience hangs out. Then meet them there with differentiated value.
Here are some examples.
1Active presence on the right platforms
For example, our Directive Drilldown series on LinkedIn features regular posts from team members sharing what’s working across B2B marketing. Each post is based on real campaigns we are actively running and optimizing. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how we solve complex marketing problems in real time and is built for marketers who want clarity and practical, usable insights.
Insight: Team members sharing their insights directly has increased Directive’s LinkedIn reach by 55%. It has helped expand our voice, build trust, and stay top of mind with the right audience.
Hosting webinars on high-demand topics
Take our most recent webinar, “From AIOs to LLMs: How B2B Teams Must Evolve Search Strategy and Reporting for the AI Era.” This webinar tackled the urgent questions B2B marketers are asking as AI changes the search landscape. Led by our Director of Content Marketing, Sara Meier, and a panel of SEO strategists on her team, it unpacked how AI Overviews (AIO) and large language models (LLMs) are shifting visibility, performance metrics, and pipeline impact. We shared actionable strategies, reporting frameworks, and demand-capture tactics built for this new era. The format was built for urgency and utility. Watch it here.
Insight: We had zero drop-off across the full 45-minute session. The depth, relevance, and timing of the content kept the entire audience engaged from start to finish.
Running a branded newsletter
Our newsletter, Directive Digest, goes out to over 10,000 marketers on a biweekly basis. It includes campaign breakdowns, trend analysis, and performance benchmarks pulled directly from our team’s day-to-day work. The content gives our audience tactical ideas they can apply immediately, and for us, it is a strong signal of what topics and formats are resonating. We use this data to inform everything from campaign themes to webinar topics.
Insight: As an engaged audience, our average open rate is 76.5%.
If your competitors are showing up in the same places, use that to assess whether the space is saturated or validated. Then decide how to zig when they zag.
Step 4: Operationalize and Track Your Differentiation
Once you know what sets you apart, make it easy for your team to use it.
Start with a content audit. Review your website, sales decks, ad copy, and even email signatures. Ask: Does this reflect what we actually do better?
Many teams build a shared library of messaging elements. A simple spreadsheet of approved differentiators can make a huge difference in aligning teams.
To track impact, look at:
- Sales cycle length
- Conversion rates from MQL to SQL
- Total lead quality and velocity
If your differentiation is working, you’ll see better-qualified deals moving faster through the funnel.
Step 5: Maintain Strategic Alignment as You Scale
Differentiation is not static. Markets shift. Competitors adjust. You will need to revisit your positioning regularly.
Create ownership inside your team. Define who is responsible for updating competitive intelligence and who ensures those insights make it into your messaging.
Don’t wait until differentiation is gone to notice you’ve become just another option.
Keep your eyes on the field. Track where others are headed. And make sure your story stays sharp and focused.
Where Directive Focuses Differently
At Directive, our approach to differentiation is grounded in a methodology we call Customer Generation. Unlike traditional lead generation that chases traffic or surface-level engagement, Customer Generation aligns every marketing motion with real revenue outcomes. It prioritizes pipeline, not pageviews, and measures success by how effectively we acquire high-value customers.
This starts by capturing high-intent demand through channels like paid search, SEO, and CRO. From there, we layer in full-funnel content, creative strategy, and conversion optimization to accelerate decisions and reduce time to close. The focus is not just on volume, but on velocity and quality. The outcome is a revenue engine that is fully accountable from first click to closed deal.
For example, we partnered with Lakeside, a digital experience monitoring platform, that needed more than just traffic. We built a Customer Generation program that included intent-driven blog content, assets tied to real buyer pain points, and a technical SEO overhaul to strengthen discoverability. The results: a 229% increase in organic new users from the blog, a 121% increase in organic leads, and a 105% lift in overall organic traffic, all year over year.
Brand Creates Demand and Must Be Part of the Strategy
Customer Generation is most effective when supported by long-term brand investment. That’s why our fourth principle is simple: Brand Creates Demand.
There’s a common myth in performance marketing that brand is something you fund later, once pipeline is healthy. But the data points in a different direction.
McKinsey, in partnership with Interbrand, found that the world’s best brands have outperformed the S&P 500 every single year since 2000 (McKinsey x Interbrand, 2020). Earlier research in 2014 showed the top 40 global brand portfolios delivered 73% more in total shareholder return compared to the MSCI World Index (McKinsey, 2014).
Brand drives conversion, pricing power, trust, and even speed to close. If you’ve worked at a known company, you’ve felt the lift. If you’ve been at an unknown one, you’ve felt the drag. Yet most B2B teams spend very little on brand. There is often no owner, no timeline, and no real budget.
Our CEO, Garrett Mehrguth, has long believed this is where smart marketers should start. Not with gated content or low-intent lead forms, but with brand campaigns that compound and differentiate.
Here’s how he suggests getting started:
- Allocate 25% of your marketing budget to brand. This is enough to make an impact without derailing short-term goals.
- Build one creative campaign you actually believe in. If you would not share it, your audience won’t either. Make it sharp, original, and worth talking about.
Brand is not a luxury. It is the foundation for modern pipeline growth. Treat it that way, and the results will follow.
Ready to put brand back where it belongs?
If you’re serious about building a differentiated pipeline strategy that compounds over time, now is the time to act. Start with one bold campaign. Invest where others hesitate. And make brand a lever for performance, not just perception.
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Graysen Christopher
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