How do you stand on top of the heap compared to all your competitors? What does your company have in place to impress prospective customers the added value they can expect when they establish a relationship with you? Does your company possess a specific feature so unique that it will stand out as a persuasive reason for someone to deal with you? Is your company simply blending in with the crowd or standing out as a known go-to source in your industry? Understand that if your companies name or slogan is not slipping off the tip of some ones tongue when one is searching for a company in your chosen field – well you have some work to do on developing your uniqueness.
Have you ever actually given any consideration as to your company’s uniqueness? What’s the one trait that separates you from your competition? If everything else is equal when trying to decide which product or service to buy, what dominant uniqueness does your company represent that becomes the difference between winning and losing potential business?
Let’s first explore exactly how we would create our uniqueness. The first exercise would be to go through the process of creating a unique selling proposition (USP). A unique selling proposition (USP) is a well thought out statement that will help your company distinguish itself from other businesses in its industry. In the developing of a USP you would focus on features or benefits that solves a problem, satisfies a need, or takes away their customers’ pain or concerns. The interesting thing about creating a USP is that this unique attribute or feature doesn’t necessarily have to be unique to you, your product, or your services; you only have to create the perception that it is unique in the mind of the audience in your market place.
In order to articulate your uniqueness to the customer base in a memorable way, some companies will create taglines or summaries of their USP and insert them into their advertising messages. For example, BMW is “The ultimate driving experience,” Fed Ex is “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight” and “You’re in good hands with Allstate.” These slogans are all ingrained in our brains when we think of these companies. This is standing out, this is uniqueness.
This concept of a unique selling proposition (USP) is an important lesson to consider when putting together a marketing strategy. Once you find it, then all you have to do is communicate it to your potential market.
Whether you’re a startup or just reinventing yourself, identifying the essential elements that can help build your company’s name and reputation will get you started on the road to branding your uniqueness.
In developing a marketing strategy that can be use as the foundation of your USP – listed below are a few questions that you should consider from our USP Questionnaire that our clients actually run through to define their own Unique Selling Proposition.
What actually makes me unique? How does my company stand out?
Who are my biggest competitors… What do they do well? What do they do poorly? What is ‘unique’ about them?
In your Ideal Scenario, what is the one thing that if you could guarantee it, would make you the market leader?
When identifying your Market Place, what is most important to an average customer in your industry?
What are the reasons your customers would come to you rather than your competitors?
What three things are your best customers saying about you?
If you could easily overcome any two of your customers’ frustrations, what would they be and how would you overcome them?
What 2 things will relieve your customer’s frustrations that you can guarantee and deliver 100% of the time right now?
Getting clear on the answers to these and many more questions that are not listed will get you well on your way of understanding where you place in your niche in addition to creating a compelling Unique Selling Proposition.
If you would like more assistance creating your USP, feel free to contact your coach.