- Inbound Marketing
- What is the Unique Selling Proposition , Unique Selling Proposition , USP
One of the first steps in building a solid marketing strategy is identifying your company’s Unique Selling Proposition. Surely you have already heard of it, but it is not always so easy to recognize it. The Unique Selling Proposition, often abbreviated to USP, is the reason why your product or service differs from that of your competitors and immediately becomes attractive to your potential customers. It is therefore easy to understand how useful it is to find it. Today I will give you some suggestions to better understand what it is and, above all, how to identify it.
What is the Unique Selling Proposition
The Unique Selling Proposition is that sales proposal that makes you unique, compared to all other competitors. Defining it is the first step in building a solid marketing strategy. A correct Unique Selling Proposition will allow you to tell your company in a targeted way and attract customers who are really interested in you and your products.
Obviously, the less competition, the easier it will be to identify the Unique Selling Proposition. If, on the other hand, you are moving into a crowded market, finding the right USP may be more complicated than expected without the help of professionals. Relying on a professional or an agency will ensure that no mistakes are made. Few companies can boast a uniqueness in their sector. And unfortunately, without the Unique Selling Proposition, it’s not easy to successfully direct your efforts so that your sales goals are met. The USP is very useful to better focus on our goals, and to verify that a strategy is really functional.
Furthermore, the Unique Selling Proposition should consist of only one characteristic. Only in this way could we properly emphasize it in the corporate communication that we are going to do.
History of the USP
We started talking about the Unique Selling Proposition around the 1940s. Starting from the theory of Hard Selling, which argued that every advertising campaign should be targeted by leveraging content, we came to identify the reason why a potential customer should have preferred a product or company rather than another, namely Unique Selling Proposition. The term was coined by Rosser Reeves and, according to the definition, it had to contain the distinctive feature of a product, the one that more than any other would have distinguished it from its competitors. According to Reeves, for each product or for each company, only one benefit had to be highlighted.
How to locate the USP
The best way to identify your USP is to find that of your other competitors. It is therefore necessary to analyze how other companies use their USPs to their advantage. Then, start studying other companies’ ads and marketing messages. There is always a lot to learn from the competitor analysis, even with regards to the USP.
Once you’ve done this research, put yourself in your potential customers’ shoes: why should they choose you? Sometimes we tend, mistakenly, to believe that the price is the only discriminating factor, but this is not the case. There are other reasons to guide customer behavior and purchasing decisions.
A good way to identify the Unique Selling Proposition is to answer a few questions: what kind of products and services you sell, who is your target, what is your strength and what is your main goal. Once you have found the answer, you will be well under way, but it certainly does not end there. Think about what problem your products or services solve and how. The answer will always bring you a little closer to identifying your Unique Selling Proposition.
Then think about what are the elements that differentiate you from your competitors. It will be these elements of uniqueness that will make the difference in the buying process and will answer the question: why you and not others.
Finally, the last step in identifying the USP is a combination of all the elements and answers you have come up with from the previous process, turning them into a promise. This, of course, must not be betrayed if you do not want to run the risk of damaging your Brand Reputation.
Obviously, in order to correctly identify the Unique Selling Proposition, one cannot lose sight of the target. Studying the Buyer Personas is essential to identify the problems that potential customers may have and what solution could make a difference for them.
What to do once you have found the Unique Selling Proposition
Once you have found a USP that might be right for your business, I recommend that you let it “settle” for a few days. Submit it to trusted, diverse people, and measure the impact. This stage is very important. A weak or poorly focused USP may fail to highlight the important aspects of a business, leading to the loss of new potential customers. It may therefore be necessary to review it, change it and make several attempts. But once you have focused on it, and therefore you are clear about who your customers are, what problems they are having and how you could solve them, you can start with your marketing strategy.
Conclusions
If you understand what the Unique Selling Proposition is and the importance it plays within a market strategy, and for this reason you want to be sure you are doing the right thing, contact SEO Leader. I will help you to focus on your company’s Unique Selling Proposition, an element that together with tone of voice and Buyer Personas, will allow you to create persuasive texts to promote yourself online and offline.
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