the Bridge

Creating an engaging and relevant market proposition is a crucial step in the process of developing a direct marketing campaign. It is essential that you fully understand the uniqueness of your businesses offer and can express its value in a way that the customer understands.

Ask yourself why should the customer choose you?

Defining your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) from the outset can help you to refine your sales messages and effectively communicate the core essence of your competitive advantage.

So how do you identify your USP?

Look for all aspects of your product or service offer that makes your business unique or different. Determine what is special about your offer and how it will benefit your customer.

The business landscape

Increasing your knowledge of the marketplace in which you operate as well as your key competitors is good business practice. Yet how many small businesses really invest enough time into understanding their comparative market position? A potential outcome for low market awareness can be the development of “me too” products. An undifferentiated product may need to compete on price, reducing margins and profit.

 
 Six simple steps to developing your USP
 
1) Review your business processes and key product and service attributes

Remember that you need to view your business offer from the customer’s point of view. What are the benefits they will receive from your offer? What is in it for them – why should they care? Compare the key benefits of your product or service with that of your competitors.

 
2) Review competitor businesses

Start reviewing your competitors and other comparable businesses via the internet and any other promotional material you can access.

A) How do the companies position themselves and how do they communicate their key benefits?
B) What is their tone of voice and writing style?
C) What products and services are offered and what do they specialise in?

The insights that you gain from this process will help you to determine where you fit amongst your competitors and what you need to say about your business in order to communicate your unique offering.

 
3) Outline your competitive advantages

Using your competitor review and comparative benefits, create a list of key features that your business or product offers which:

A) Deliver unique customer benefits
B) Establish you as a preferential supplier
This list of benefits will form the foundation of your USP statement.

 
4) Develop a draft USP statement

When creating your USP statement you need to define the benefit statement in terms of the customer. Remember it is about your customer not your business – Use “you” and not “I” or “we”.

An ideal length for your USP is about 30 to 40 words or less as this will allow you to use it in online business directories and supplier lists where space is at a premium. You may also develop additional versions with various lengths to suit different applications yet still retain the core message.

If you find that your offer is not unique or is at risk of being duplicated you may wish to put some more thought into creating new benefits and how you can make your offer different or superior.

 
5) Review and refine your USP

Compare your new USP against other competitor’s statements to see how it stacks up.
Seek feedback on your draft USP from staff, customers and advisors. Ask them if this statement represents what your business offers its customers and does it effectively communicate all the key customer benefits.

 
6) Finalise your USP and positioning

Refine your USP statement until you are happy that it communicates the essence of your business in the eyes of the customer. When you have finished give yourself a huge pat on the back as you have achieved what many businesses struggle to do.

As a result of this process you will have:
1. Greater awareness of your marketplace
2. More knowledge of who your competitors are
3. Greater understanding of:
- Your strengths and weaknesses
- What makes your business different
- Your key marketing and sales messages
4. Greater consistency in your marketing and sales communications
 

With your USP top of mind, you will now have a much better idea of what to communicate in sales messages and promotional offers. In the future your emails, direct mail and other direct marketing activities should be consistent with your core USP.

 
Stay tuned for more direct marketing insights from The Bridge

If you are new to our direct marketing best practice communication you can review previous topics via the links below.

1. Data is #1
2. Who is your customer anyway?
3. What is your proposition?
4. Get your message right
5. Creative design
6. A creative brief
7. Relevance is everything
8. Which methods and why
9. Conversion and success
10. Why measure?
11. Systems and support
12. CRM for you
13. Your next steps

Each topic is posted on our marketing blog and linked above for easy reference.
 
Let us take care of it!
Let us produce your next successful direct marketing campaign. Contact us to discuss your marketing programme requirements or visit our website.
 
 

 
You’re USP

Developing an effective Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is one of the key foundations of creating a competitive and successful business. Getting your USP right from the outset can make your marketing and sales activity a lot more effective. It also makes it easier for you to communicate a consistent message in a variety of different mediums.

The Wikipedia definition of a USP is: “The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique—either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field…” for example FedEx’s proposition is “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”.

Knowing your competitors, customers and your marketplace seems like an obvious requirement. However not many small businesses really invest enough time into understanding the comparative market position of their products and services. The likely outcome of such low awareness is the development of “me too” type products and services that look alike. Therefore the business is forced to compete on pricing rather than well developed customer benefits.

 
How do you identify your USP?
Start by reviewing your businesses’ key strengths, weaknesses and overall market position. Look for all aspects of your product or service offer that makes your business unique or different. What is special about your offer and how will it benefit the customer? Ask yourself why the customer should buy from you and not your competitor.
 
An example of defining a Hotel’s benefits:

Location is always a big factor in market positioning in this type of business. The hotel in question has old world charm and is considered boutique accommodation. There are a small number of uniquely decorated rooms and the overall atmosphere is eclectic.

The Hotel owner looks at the business and deduces that the key benefits for the customer are:
1. Proximity to the waterfront with a picturesque outlook
2. Boutique features with a unique atmosphere – the hotel has a real personality
3. Like no other hotel – ideal for people who want to experience something different.
 

In the process of defining your USP you will also need to consider the wider market context within which you operate. If we take the example of running a railways business, this could be widened to the context of transport. The change in perception will fundamentally shift the way you look at what you offer the market. The U.S. rail industry failed to make this readjustment last century and suffered from a market shift that left them almost obsolete.

 
For example a traditional USP for a mail business is:

“Auckland Mail Services provides a fast and efficient mail delivery service. We guarantee to deliver your mail the very next day”

Let’s change the perception of the business to “facilitating the movement of information between people and businesses”, so that AMS is in the business of information transfer. They could use the following statement as a basis for developing their USP:

“Auckland Information Services makes the transfer of information easy. Every hour of the day your friends, family and businesses are connected together.”
 

The ability to future proof your USP is a definite advantage. There is however a balance between defining your market too narrowly and too broadly. You still need to be able to keep your positioning relevant to your target customer. The time you invest in this process is vital for your business as it will provide key market insights into your competitive advantages and can also provide a proof of concept for your customer offer.

 
In part 2 of this blog we look at key steps in developing a competitive USP.
 
For further support in developing your USP or to develop an effective marketing programme contact us.
 
 

 
In part 1 of this blog we look at the benefits of developing a competitive USP.

How to develop a competitive USP

Step 1a) Review business processes and key product and service attributes
This process is best done with the help of someone external to the business that can provide objective feedback. As a business owner or manager you can become so immersed in the business that it is often difficult to remove emotive opinions and you may suffer from blinkered perception.

Remember that you are trying to see your business offer from the customer’s point of view. What are the benefits they will receive from your company? What is in it for them – why should they care?

Not all businesses start with the customer in mind. Manufacturing based businesses can be very focused on the innovation and product development process. They can develop a new product because of a technology or process breakthrough rather than a direct customer requirement. The marketing and sales function is then tasked with trying to tease out the benefits and figure out how to sell the new offer.

Once you have defined the key benefits of your product or service offer then you can start to compare them with your competitors.

Step 1b) Review competitor businesses
Use the internet to review your competitors and other comparable businesses. Look for information about how the companies position themselves and how they promote their key benefits. How do they talk about their businesses? Look at things like tone of voice and writing style. What products and services are offered and what are their specialism’s?

Throughout the competitor review process you are focusing on two things; A) you are trying to understand the specific details of each individual competing business; B) you are trying to map out the industry or sector that you operate in and where your business is positioned relatively. These two pieces of information will help you determine what you need to say about your business to be different and how much competition you really have.

The business landscape is always changing, so the snapshot you are creating can become obsolete overnight. It pays to review your market at least once a year to see how it is developing. In technically fast moving markets you may have to build a continuous review process into your business to try and predict change and keep your business competitive.

Step 2) Outline clear competitive advantages
Once you have completed comprehensive competitor research and understand the comparative key benefits of your businesses’ product or service offer this stage should be relatively easy. Start creating a list of key aspects about your business that deliver customer benefits which are unique to you, which will establish you as a preferential supplier. This list of benefits will then become the foundation of your USP statement.

Step 3) Develop initial USP statement
You can begin to capture these on paper once you are confident you understand the unique elements of your business. A consideration when developing your USP is the application or when/where it will be used. You will often be required to list your business in directories or supplier lists, so having a great USP that is 30 to 40 words is very useful. The USP can be developed from a core version into several different length variations for when you have greater space to describe your business. Be mindful that you do not want to dilute the core powerful message of your statement by stretching it out too much.

When creating your USP statement you need to define the benefit statement in terms of the customer. Remember it is about your customer not your business – Use “you” and not “I” or “we”.

At Big Ed’s shoes we provide the biggest range of shoes in the southern hemisphere.

At Big Ed’s I know you will go crazy over the greatest range of shoes in Australasia.

At Big Ed’s you will find the biggest range of shoes in Australasia.
 

Following your initial analysis you could find that your offer is not unique or is at risk of being duplicated. At this point you may wish to go back to the drawing board to think about how to create new benefits or make your offer different. If your business model involves a discounting strategy or a volume based strategy, then differentiation may not be such a big issue as long as you can maintain your market

share.

Step 4) Review and amend
You can now compare your new USP against other competitor’s statements to see how it stands up. It is a good idea to get a range of opinions on your new draft USP. Try to get some neutral opinions as well as those from friendly customers and key staff. Ask them if this statement represents what your business offers its customers and does it capture all the key benefits you offer.

When creating a future orientated positioning statement which portrays your business as you would like to see it in the future, there may well be a shortfall in how people currently perceive the business. This practical difference in perception can be used to help define the actions required to close the gap between your future positioning and the current position.

Step 5) Finalise USP and positioning
Refine your statement and when you have finished pat yourself on the back as you have achieved what many small businesses struggle to do.

As a result of this process you will have:
1. Greater awareness of your market place
2. More knowledge of who your competitors are
3. Greater understanding of
-Your strengths and weaknesses
-What makes your business different
-Your key marketing and sales messages
4. Greater consistency in your marketing and sales communications
 
You will now need to start to planning your promotional activity and set your marketing plans for the coming year.
 
For further support in developing your USP or to develop an effective marketing programme contact us.