How To Create A USP that Matches Your Message To Your Market

When some people hear the term unique Selling Proposition (USP), they think of their company slogan or tag line or something trite. What a lot of business owners don’t realize is that a good USP can make or break a business. It goes much deeper than a few words in an ad.

To start off, let’s understand what a USP is. A good Unique Selling Proposition should answer the question “Why should I do business with you, now, above any and all other options available?” Now, think about that for a minute. If you can’t answer that question – and you own the business – then why should a prospect even consider bringing you their business?

It goes even deeper than that though. A good USP is going to come from actually talking to your customers to find out what they want. You want to make sure that you match your message to your market. What good does it do if you stand on the street corner offering people black umbrellas if they are all looking for red ones? Oh, you may sell some because you are there, you may see a small increase in sales if it is raining out, but what if you actually had exactly what your customer was looking for? The only way you can do this is to first know what it is that your customer wants.

A Unique Selling Proposition should also be, well, unique to your business. Do you know what your competitors are doing? What are they known for? Do something different, stand out. A consulting client once was working on his USP. They were an industrial parts supplier. Once we went through the process of building a USP, we found that one competitor had a huge warehouse and high inventory levels – their USP was that they had everything you could need. So we decided not to compete on stock. Turned out what his customers were looking for could be oiled down to one word – reliability. This company had been in business for over 30 years, had a good reputation in their marketplace and we were able to build on that. They customers wanted parts – the right parts, good quality parts, delivered on time. Once we found that out, we had a place to work from.

When you start the process of coming up with your USP, be prepared to actually make changes to your business to support it. See, a USP is not just something you say, it is not even something you do, something you are. When you can become what your customers want, you win. In my example above, it would do no good to claim the USP of reliability if orders were being shipped incomplete or late or with poor parts. You have to be able to deliver on your USP. It becomes a point that you can build your business around. It must be reflected in your appearance, your presentation, your customer service, your sales people, your post-sales follow up, etc.

Find out what your market wants and deliver it consistently. Find something that you can focus on that will set you apart from your competition and have your message meet your market. Just that can turn your business around.

Mistakes of a Marketing Budget Strategy

When I hear of a company talking about their marketing budget, I usually stop and think – then get a funny look on my face.

You see, “budget” can be defined (dictionary.com) as

• an itemized allotment of funds, time, etc., for a given period.

  Or

• the total sum of money set aside or needed for a purpose.

The problem with this is that it automatically implies that “marketing” for a business is an expense.

In fact, marketing (done properly) is not an expense, but an investment.

If marketing is an expense, then it should be stopped! The whole point of marketing is to increase sales, to turn a profit, to generate revenue. The whole point of marketing is to make more money! That is not an expense to your business. So often you hear of a business doing poorly and one of the first things they cut is their marketing. How are you supposed to make more money if you are not marketing?

Marketing is something that you design into your business. It should include all aspects of your business from advertising, customer relations, sales, post-sale contact and so on. There are aspects of almost every point of your business that can be tied in to marketing. This means that you can improve on them incrementally to increase the number of sales you make. This means that you should be measuring and constantly improving your marketing efforts.

This means that your marketing should be producing a measurable return on investment. For every dollar you spend in marketing, you should be making two dollars, five dollars, ten dollars in profit or sales. If your marketing is not doing that now, then you should stop it immediately and take a better look at your marketing strategy. If your marketing is producing results, then certainly do not stop doing it when your business is slowing down. What a perfect time to ramp it up and make more money!