The small to mid-size business often produces the same quality product or service as the larger firm, but has a smaller promotion budget and less recognition by potential buyers. Combating this is an ongoing necessity usually demanding uniqueness to succeed.

This does not necessarily mean a unique product or service. It does mean a unique approach to advertising and marketing, and it requires advance planning.

Once a distinctive market-driven logo and company name have been established, it is advisable to select just one target market for your product or service, and use it as the testing ground for your campaigns, recognizing that tailoring to other markets will be required later on. But your first goal is to establish New Product as totally unique and beneficial for First Market.

So even if you manufacture something as ordinary as Ball Point Advertising Pens which are good for all markets, you’d select just one market — perhaps realtors — and your marketing would show that target group just how distinctive your pens are for use by realty firms: unique home selling imprints, unique colors to match the brokerage’s identity, unique slogans for new listing solicitations, etc. You’d create the impression that no other manufacturer has Ball Point Realty Advertising Pens — ah, now you have the idea — and thus, you’re the one company to deal with.

If you’re viewed as unique — the only perceived specialist in a crowded field — you will become the selling leader in that field. That’s when you move on to Second Market, or Second and Third, adapting the marketing materials that worked for First Market.