There’s an important but simple marketing step that can help take your sales and income into a much higher range.
You may understand the audience for your product or service. Your promotion may be well written and your sales people gung-ho. But you’ll lose potential income if you lack this point: You must tell people why they should buy from you.
To be successful you have to communicate the thing that sets you apart.
This is your “Unique Selling Proposition” or USP. It’s the thing that sets you apart from others in your field. It takes you from being just another “Me Too” company to being way out in front of the pack.
There is something unique about every business. Yours could be a unique value, price, niche or benefit. Perhaps you offer something your competitors either can’t or don’t do. Is your business the only one in your area that employs a certain type of specialist? Does a live person always answer your phone – never an automated system? Is someone on call 24/7?
Some companies have phrased and promoted their USP so well that most of us are familiar with them. “Enterprise (car rental) picks you up.” “M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hands.” “Timex, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
How do you identify your Unique Selling Proposition?
First, you have to know the audience for your product or service. What’s important to them? What’s going to appeal to them?
Second, look over your business and see what you do that makes you unique or fills a void in the marketplace. It may even be something that other companies do but no one promotes. And it needs to be something that your audience thinks is important.
Third, your USP must be true. Your first choice may sound great but if you can’t deliver it, choose something else.
Since it is a unique selling proposition, it has to be compelling enough to motivate people into doing an action you want them to – make a purchase, sign up for your newsletter, set up a consultation and so on. If you aren’t sure, test it out.
Then focus on it in your promotion, web content, sales pitches, business cards, blogs, etc. And watch your sales increase!
Cebron Walker
Senior Marketing Consultant, IET