A USP is what Stands you apart from your competitors’. It’s what makes you unique in the eyes of your prospects and customers, it’s what differentiates you from other suppliers.
If you don’t find and subsequently use a USP in your marketing, you become something of a commodity, and prospects will only choose to use you on a random basis, with no defined reason behind their purchase decision.
Your USP explains to the world why you’re different, and why they should use you.
Finding your USP
We will identify four options for finding your Unique Selling Proposition. To begin you might find it useful in answering the following questions:-
- What services and/or products do you provide?
- To whom do you provide these services/products; who are your customers?
- What needs/wants do you fulfil for your customers?
- How big a problem does your solution solve?
- What benefits do customers appreciate most and which do they actively look for?
- What makes you better than other suppliers?
- Is it the value you provide, your experience, know how, customer service, delivery speed and so on?
The second way of finding your USP is to look at the gaps and opportunities within your niche / market that aren’t currently being catered for. Find a demand that isn’t being supplied.
Look for opportunities to provide genuine convenience such as instant availability, convenient location, large selection of stock, fast service, big discounts, professional advice, longer than usual opening hours, more convenient opening hours, privacy and security to name a few.
The third way to find your USP is to have a good answer to following potential customer question…
“Why should I do business with you, instead of any and every other option available to me, including the option of doing absolutely nothing at all.”
or
“What do I uniquely guarantee.”
A fourth method of finding your USP is to compare yourself to your competitors on a range of criteria and focus your USP on the areas where you score higher.
| self | Competitor 1 | Competitor 2 | |
| Price | |||
| quality | |||
| range | |||
| Catalogue quality | |||
| website | |||
| Ease of ordering | |||
| Speed of delivery | |||
| reliability | |||
| Personal liking |
Next steps
Once you have identified your USP, you need to think about the ways in which you can use it. These could include:
- Sound-bites or elevator speeches
- Marketing messages on-line and off-line
- Brochures or flyers
- Press Releases
- Business Proposals
Keep your USP as the central theme throughout all your marketing, and through repetition you will become known as the business to use for that particular USP.
For more marketing related content check out our marketing guide.