You may have heard a term tossed around business circles about becoming a “category of one.” As the thought process goes, there is no reason to worry much about competition and market share if you are the only business with a certain unique product, or system, or identity. Too often small businesses don’t pay enough attention to cultivating and marketing what makes them supremely unique. They mistakenly think that that’s a big money game for the Starbucks, Apples and Amazons of the world. But really, any business can be successful when no one else can really do what they do and, of course, there is always a market for what can be done better than others.
In most cases it is actually easier for a small business to become a category of one than a large company. It has little to do with money. A small business can have smaller more nimble sales, marketing, and management teams. Small businesses can also have more personal connections and experiment more freely.
Websticker has been successful and profitable for over 25 years by being different from the rest. Most people would not think of our little-old Websticker business as in a category of one. But, we were one of the first promotional product companies to focus exclusively on stickers, one of the first custom sticker sellers online, and one of the first to focus more on the marketing side of stickers not just production.
As custom sticker selling competitors arrived online Websticker chose to further differentiate itself by becoming more of a sticker ad agency based on personally helping create better marketing tools and products. We wrote a book (the only book) on marketing and profiting with stickers. Basically we made the decision to stay small, not automate or sell a low priced commodity, and instead focus on selling marketing solutions based on optimized design, quality and profit producing sticker products.
Websticker has also done well and differentiated itself with branded webcam covers which we introduced as a low cost method of blocking spying eyes, but also an excellent low cost promotional product. We also created Ned, a fun character (that no one can replicate), for a worldwide happiness campaign. We are always trying to do things a bit differently and stand out from the crowd of other businesses in the custom sticker space.
What can your business do and experiment with to further become a category of one? It doesn’t need to be a huge brand or identity overhaul, though maybe it is as simple as a new slogan or mission statement. Take a look at what your (perceived) competitors are doing. What do you like and not like? What can you tweak and do differently? What out of the box idea has worked in another industry that you could perhaps adapt for your business? What are you really, really good at?
Once you have your unique differences identified don’t forget the value in gaining exposure and word of mouth for it with a unique sticker campaign that catches eyes and gets people talking.
Jeff Nicholson is the founder and Creative Director at 
