Create your unique selling proposition

Guest blog post by Jessica Swanson of Shoestring Marketing

In order to succeed in your small business, you simply cannot be like everyone else; you need to stand apart from the crowd. Always keep in mind that you don’t want to be ‘just another fish in the sea’. You want to be the biggest, brightest and fastest fish in the sea!

So how do you accomplish this? You create a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A USP differentiates you from your competition and gets you noticed.

Here are a few examples of companies with clear, concise and memorable USP’s:

Head and Shoulders: We get rid of dandruff

Dominos Pizza: Pizza in 30 minutes or less – or it’s FREE

FedEx: When your package positively, absolutely has to get there overnight.

M & M’s: The milk chocolate melts in your mouth not in your hands

Olay: For younger looking skin

In order to be effective, your USP must contain the following three components:

1) You must offer your customers a specific benefit (if you buy this product, you will receive this benefit).

2) Your offer must be unique and different than your competition.

3) Your offer must be compelling enough to pull in new customers.

Once you create a USP that truly stands out, you will find prospects and customers lining up at your door! With all of the competition out there, you must find a way to make yourself unique.

Use The Following 7-Step Formula To Create Your USP:

Step 1: Describe the Benefits of Doing Business With YOU

Describe 3 benefits that customers will receive by doing business with you. The reality of the situation is that your customer doesn’t care if you offer the best quality, service, or price.  These are simply features of your business or service.

Your customer only cares what your business can do for him/her. For instance, will the customer be happier, healthier, wealthier, or smarter if they use your product or services? 

Take some time to write down three benefits that your business/ service offers to your customer/client.

Step 2: How Are You Unique?

Remember, you MUST offer your customer something that others DO NOT offer him/her. Basically, your USP separates you from the competition so that the prospect feels that clearly the best option is to do business with you (as opposed to your competition).

Write the different ways in which you can differentiate yourself from your competition. What unique qualities, attributes or skills do you have to offer?

Step 3: What Problem Can You Solve?

At this very moment, there are numerous problems in your industry that customers would like to see solved.
•    How to write great ad-copy
•    How to reduce your mortgage
•    How to train your dog in 7 days or less
•    How to find a date in 30 days
•    How to find inexpensive health insurance
•    How to find leads…
Obviously, the possibilities are endless!

Start by identifying pressing problems that exist in your particular industry. Brainstorm various ways that you could help solve or alleviate these problems.

There are always ways that you can help solve your customers’ problems, you just need to be creative. However, always make sure that you can deliver on your promises!

Step 4: Be Specific And Offer Proof:

Do not simply proclaim that you are “the best.” This means virtually nothing to your customers. Remember, people in today’s world are often skeptical and need specific examples and proof that you can fulfill your promises.

Tell your prospects exactly what they can expect by doing business with you. Do not be vague or ambiguous. The more precise and accurate you are, the more your prospects will trust you.
In addition, you should also offer testimonials from satisfied customers. This is important proof that helps your prospects believe that you will deliver on your promises.

Step 5: Use Your USP In ALL Of Your Marketing Materials:

Variations of your USP should be included in ALL or your marketing materials such as:
•    Advertising and sales copy headlines
•    Business cards, brochures, flyers, and signs
•    Your “elevator pitch”, phone, and sales script
•    Letterhead, letters, and postcards
•    Landing Pages and Websites
•    Newsletters and Ezines
•    Social Networking Sites and Other Internet Marketing Efforts

Final Step: Write Your USP!

After going through some of the above steps, take some time to write out a USP for yourself that you will use in conjunction with your business. Your USP should be clear and concise. You want your prospects to see the benefits and unique qualities that you have to offer so that they feel compelled to do business with you!

Once you discover your Unique Selling Proposition, your business will never be the same!

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Jessica Swanson, ‘The Shoestring Marketer’, has helped entrepreneurs, all over the world, explode their businesses using cutting-edge, proven, NO-COST internet marketing strategies. To receive your FREE Marketing Kit,  which has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, just like you, learn the exact techniques for marketing their businesses for NO-COST, visit: http://www.ShoestringMarketingKit.com

But what is this advert really saying?

I’ve just finished an advert.

The process was that it needed to be made ready for print: the image at 300 dpi, changed from RGB to CMYK, collect the logo from the original and superimpose it onto the new one (using Photoshop to separate it from its original background), work out what font was used for the text and transform it to the right size for the magazine’s dimensions including bleed.

The effect is stunning, because the image used is stunning. But that is all it has going for it. Sure, it will fit in extremely well into the kind of magazine it is going into, as it will look like just the rest of the pages, beautiful. But the problem is, is it really an advert?

Why am I questioning this? Because it misses some vital points. OK, it has a logo, but that isn’t the be-and-end-all of an advert, not unless it is Coca-Cola which needs no explanation. Do you understand exactly what it is promoting? If you do, what makes it different from anything else? Also, the text (if you could read it because it is so small) is too cryptic to understand its message properly; there are no instructions for the reader to take action; and even if they did want to make contact, there’s only a webaddress which is miniscule and totally unnoticeable (can you find it?).

I suppose the owner wanted their promotion to be subtle, like their product, but unless you have managed to secure world-wide fame and a huge following, have made millions of pounds and have several well-placed outlets throughout the world, have all the fashion magazines falling over themselves to do a story on your product and the biggest celebrities showing off their latest version on the red carpet, then this kind of advertising is not going to work – at all!

Do you want to buy from me? No thanks, I don’t know you.

A sales rep rang me up today (just as I was about to go out to a networking meeting) and tried to sell me her income protection plan. Apart from not being in a very receptive frame of mind, I was irritated that she tried to pin me down to a time, first before Christmas and then in the New Year, so she could come to my ‘offices’ to continue her sale. When I asked if she had any literature she could send me, the answer was in the negative, but she did have a website.

After I had finally fobbed her off and put down the ‘phone, I wondered why I was so irritated. Of course, she had gone straight into ’sell’ mode and had by-passed the ‘marketing’ part. I suppose a sales person thinks they can win a sale if they can get an ‘interview’ with you, and I was further annoyed because she kept saying ‘well, I will only spend 15 minutes of your time’ – oh, yeah, and was I born yesterday?

If you want to achieve in business, it’s best to go through the correct methods: introduction resulting in attraction of you and your business; marketing to form a relationship and to educate them about your services or product; then the sales patter to influence a positive reaction to purchasing what you have to offer; and finally money exchanging hands with completion of sale.

This method may take a little longer, but the results are more positive and long-lasting, and may influence word-of-mouth referrals to other potential customers. Also marketing can educate your prospectives into other products or services you can offer, and you can learn by marketing research exactly what is needed and wanted, thereby improving your business accordingly.

I feel sorry for sales reps, because sometimes they’re banging their heads against a brick wall. Of course they will have successes, because of the nature of their patter, or the product or service they offer is presented to the right person at the right time, but is this ’sell’ method more profitable? How many ‘no thanks’ do they get against ‘yes please’?  If their company allowed more time for it to be properly marketed, budget depending, the outcome would be less stressful and demoralising, would have longer-term prospects, would allow itself to adapt and reform to become a better business to survive the future, and would result in larger sales from a wider audience with far less hassle.

Making sure of the obvious

One of my printers proudly showed me a catalogue of baby clothes his firm had recently printed.  It wasn’t the content he was proud of, but the particular colour blue they had managed to create – but this post isn’t about that.

I looked inside the brochure, and appreciated the beautiful bouquets on the first pages. But what had these to do with baby clothes? The printer pointed out that some of the flowers were in fact rolled up baby clothes made to look like flowers. Hmmm. But why did it need to be explained to me? The concept was certainly innovative, but did the business owners have so much faith in their bouquets they thought everybody would be able to spot the rolled up clothes?

Never assume people will get a concept immediately. This doesn’t mean you should treat all people as ’stupid’, but concepts should be adequately presented to make them obvious. Cleverly presented marketing will disguise this ‘obvious’ method so that instant recognition applies. Readers should be able to understand your message with the least amount of effort, preferably within a nano-second. This is very difficult to do, but visuals are far more effective than a page of small, closely placed text that requires time, effort and a pair of reading glasses to deliver the message.

My solution would be to show the ‘fait complete‘ bouquet in all its glory, and another one underneath in the same position but with some of the clothes partially unrolled and appropriately displayed. Then this clever concept will be revealled and appreciated.

The moral? Avoid making assumptions. Carefully explain all your concepts in plain, ordinary language, avoiding any jargon or academia, and as clearly and concisely as possible. Use visuals whenever possible, but be aware that, through NLP, not everybody reacts favourably to pictures: some prefer words, other sounds, some even moving images.

Put yourself in your reader’s or potential customer’s shoes. How would they think? What’s going through their heads and what would they look at first when they open the brochure? What’s their priority or reasons for looking? Is it for themselves or for another? How much time do they have – browsing, flicking through, scanning, etc? How can you get the products, or the concept within the products, to jump out at them?

And once you’ve got their attention, how do you entice and cajoul them to make that purchase? Special offers? Loyalty schemes? Time dependent action? Intrigue and persuasion? Or just because it’s a really good idea?