Crafting a Strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
If you want to attract more people to YOU, your website, or your business, then you must create a strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP) because your USP it is the single most important ingredient in attracting people to you.
In a highly competitive market, the saying “differentiate or die,” has never been more true. If you cannot differentiate yourself from the crowd, you will be lost in the crowd. In a world of instant websites and free templates, it has never been easier to establish a presence online. Do you really want to look and sound just like everyone else?
Your Unique Selling Proposition consists of three primary components:
1. How you are different from everyone else and how you set yourself apart from the competition (Unique)
2. How you are positioned to convince prospects to spend their money with you (Selling)
3. What you offer (Proposition)
In line with developing and preserving your personal brand, your USP guides your every action as you grow your business. You must ultimately get your brand recognized and familiar to your target market. By establishing your Unique Selling Proposition, you will have created a starting point from which everything you do originates.
Assuming you have identified your target market, (who, specifically, it is that you want to be exposed to your USP), your next step is to determine how you will market to this group. All sound marketing focuses on one of two primary objectives:
* Positive – Meeting a want or need
* Negative – Solving a problem (reducing or eliminating a customer “pain”)
Your USP must be compelling and to the point. Think of it as a single sentence that sells you and what you offer. The following five suggestions should help get you started in creating your Unique Selling Proposition.
1. How YOU are unique (think of the word as YOU-neek). What separates you from the competition. What does someone get from you that they don’t get from everyone else who offers a similar product or service? This coveys to the prospect that there is no reason to look further for a solution.
2. The benefits of dealing with YOU. It is not sufficient to simply say that you have the lowest price or the best quality and service. You must communicate “why” your prospect needs the benefits you offer; why they need look no further. Put yourself in the shoes of your prospect as you consider what it takes to convince you to take action.
3. Void(s) within your current target market that you can fill. What problems are there with your types of products or services that you can improve on or solve? This is the research part of developing your USP that is critically important. Learning how your competition is currently going to market involves visiting relevant websites, yellow page ads, and other forms of advertising such as TV and radio. Begin observing and listening more intently to the ads that catch your attention, especially any that move you to action.
* What problem or desire did the ad address?
* How did the advertiser uniquely position themselves to solve a problem or meet a need?
* What was their “call to action?” What did they tell you to do next?
4. Proving how YOU deliver on your promises. Most consumers today are very skeptical because there is so much “noise” in the marketplace. Ads that over-promise are the norm as small and large businesses alike yell louder and louder to get heard through the very noise they are creating.
Perhaps the strongest and most compelling way to get around this noise is through the personal testimony. People want to know what others experienced when they used you, your product, or your service. Testimonies help to convince skeptical prospects that they can, in fact, achieve their desired want or need, or relieve their pain.
5. Making good on what YOU promise. Consider the brands to which you are most loyal. Perhaps a brand of coffee, or shoes, or a favorite restaurant. What must this brand do EVERY time you deal with them in order to maintain your loyalty? What do you expect, and how do they consistently deliver? What happens if they don’t meet your expectations, even once?
In the example of a favorite restaurant, it is quite likely that this restaurant always buys their food ingredients fresh and from the best sources, that they are prompt and courteous, that their prices are competitive, and that they are open at the times when you hungry. Failing to meet even one of these expectations, given the many choices of restaurants from which to choose, probably means they have lost your business. And in an age of instant communication with cell phones, Twitter, and the like, your disastifaction will most likely be communicated to others …within minutes!
Can you afford not to deliver on you USP’s promise even once? Consider this carefully as you create your USP. Under-promise and over-deliver EVERY time.
Ultimately, a well-crafted and executed USP can deliver many new prospects and help convert these prospects into satisfied customers. Invest the time now to carefully craft your Unique Selling Proposition, use it everywhere you can, and always exceed what you promise. By doing so, you will quickly separate yourself from the pack and distinguish yourself as a viable resource that provides great value, unique in every way.
