The most successful businesses in the world set themselves apart by articulating their unique capabilities. It’s a necessity if you want to stand out from the crowd. It’s how you lure customers to your door and not your competitors. Having a unique selling proposition also helps you avoid only competing on price, which eats into your margins.
Think of your unique selling proposition as something that prevents you from becoming a “me too” company. It grabs the attention of potential customers, and can’t be easily copied. It offers a clear cut benefit to your customer.
For some companies, coming up with a USP is easy, as they clearly have something that sets them apart. For other industries though, it can be a little harder to come by. The following suggestions will help you clearly define what your unique selling proposition is.
- Analyzing the competition
What does your competition do well, and where do they fall short? What do you offer that they don’t? Where are they located geographically compared to you? Looking for holes in the market will help you define your niche.
- What Sets You Apart
Perhaps you’re a jewelry store with a designer on site, or a floral shop that has a professional writer craft messages for customers. If you can make claims that set you apart from your competition, you have an easier USP to run with.
- Identify Customer Pain Points
If you can’t find a USP that sets you apart, try listing the main frustrations of consumers in your industry and then come up with a unique selling proposition that will address and/or solve those frustrations.
- Guarantees
Another way to soothe customer frustrations is to offer a cure for them. Domino’s Pizza is a great example of promising to deliver pizza in 30 minutes or less, or it’s free. This cures customers’ frustration with pizza taking too long, or it showing up cold. What can you guarantee to your customers to ease potential frustrations?
- Only Make Claims You Can Fulfill
It is important to deliver on what you promise, otherwise your unique selling proposition will be useless. Companies that don’t deliver on their promises lose customer loyalty, and potentially damage their reputation.
Once you’ve determined what your unique selling proposition is, condensing it into a few words and using that in all of your marketing; from ads to sales calls, letterheads, websites and anything else. You’ll get cash flowing a lot faster when you clearly define your USP and broadcast that message to the marketplace.
