What's the Big Idea with USP's?
Put simply, a USP is a clear, concise statement that describes the unique benefit your product or service offers and how it solves your customers’ problems better than your competitors.
It’s not a hand jive that you do, it’s what truly sets you apart from the competition.
It can be as simple as the “image” of your brand or as concrete as the things that your widget does that no other can.
Below we’ll go into more detail about what they are and, more importantly, how to make one for your business.
Yeah, but what's in it for me?
It may be tempting to thing that creating a unique selling proposition is just more marketing buzz, especially when you are first starting out. But the savvier operators will know that’s rubbish.
A good USP will
- Attract customers
- Build your brand identity
- Communicate your value
- Cut through the noise in the market and stand out
- Define the “why” behind your product or service through emotional connections
Time to Do Some Detective Work
First things first, you gotta know who you’re selling to.
A buyer persona covers every aspect of a potential customer in detail using a fictional person as an example. This includes demographics, psychographics, pain points and much more.
For businesses that are focused on sales to other businesses for services or products, instead of a buyer persona, an ideal customer profile should be created.
Both are similar in intent; however, an ideal customer profile will have more details about the kind of company and other decision makers that might be involved in the sales process.
Key Aspects of a Buyer Persona to help craft your USP
Demographics
- Age range
- Gender distribution
- Income levels
- Education
- Location
- Occupation
Psychographics
- Values
- Interests
- Lifestyle Choices
- Personality Traits
Pain points
- What keeps them up at night?
- What problems are they trying to solve?
- What frustrations doe they face in their daily lives or work?
Goals and aspirations
- What are they trying to achieve?
- What does success look like to them?
Buying behavior
- How do they make purchasing decisions?
- What factors influence their choices?
Reviews
- What are they saying about you and your competition?
- What factors influence their choices?
To gather this information, you may want to consider:
– Conducting surveys or interviews with existing customers
– Analyzing your customer database
– Using social media listening tools
– Reviewing industry reports and market research
Not every business will be able to do all of these, as if you are just starting out you may not have any customers yet, but with a little Googling and some research you should be able to find what you need to get started.
Identify Key Competitors
You may already have an idea of who your major competition is, but it always pays to do some research. So now it’s time to scope out the competition.
There are quite a few tools that you can use but here are some good ones (and they are all free).
– Search engines: Google’s your best pal here. Use keywords related to your product or service to see who pops up.
– Social media: See what the cats are saying on Twitter (is it X now? Do I really have to say X?), Facebook, and Instagram. Look for brands that your target audience follows and engages with.
– Industry reports: Check out market analysis reports for your industry to identify major players. White papers and other reports can often be found online with these kinds of details.
– Customer feedback: Ask your customers who else they considered before choosing you or scope out the competition’s reviews. What do people say when they are praising or criticizing your competition.
These can be great sources of feedback on what people want, as those that are actually leaving reviews are either the happiest, or the most enraged.
Once you have your competition identified and sources of customer feedback found, you want to note down each competitor’s following traits.
Their USP
What are they claiming as their unique advantage? What do they say makes them so special?
Marketing Messages
How are they positioning themselves in the market? Are they a high-class brand that prioritizes luxury and comfort or do they focus on convenience and savings? (Are they a Rolls-Royce or a Toyota?)
Product & Service Offerings
What features and benefits do they highlight? What pain points are they trying to address?
Pricing Strategy
How do they price their products or services? Do they price themselves high or low?
Custome Reviews
What do customers love or hate about them?
Find their USPs and ask yourself:
– What are they saying explicitly and implicitly in their messaging? Sometimes what they are not talking about is just as important as what they do talk about.
– Where do they fall short or promise more than they can deliver? (Apple I’m looking at you)
– What gaps in the market are they not addressing? Do you see an opportunity that they are missing or a problem that they are not solving?
What's Your Secret Sauce?
Now it’s time to look inward and start to find out what your unique selling proposition should be.
With the information you have gathered as a backdrop start by looking at all of the features of your product or service.
Actually Being Unique
Identify product or service features that could be unique differentiators.
First, List all features of your product or service. For each feature, ask: Is this unique? If not, can we make it unique? Your widgets may be the same as everyone else but a simple name change to “Super Duper Widget” may be what you need.
Consider aspects like quality, design, functionality, or customer support, have something that makes you stand out from the crowd. Do you have knowledge or experience that makes you the big cheese in your field?
Do you have industry expertise, or even just unique experience in your industry? Sometimes saying “I come at this with a different view is a great selling point”. Do you have proprietary technology or processes that no one else can match? Do you have patents or exclusive rights to something that makes it so only you can give them this solution? Do you have any unique partnerships or resources that give you a leg up on everyone else?
Look at your company values and culture as well. What principles guide your business decisions? How does your company culture benefit customers? As a local business do you do something special for the community?
Finally, customer success stories are a great way to set yourself apart from others. The best kind of testimonial is an authentic, video recording from a customer that is like your buyer persona or ideal customer profile. This lets people see that what you have has worked for someone like them and lowers the barrier to entry for them.
Benefits vs. Competition
Outline how your offering helps customers more than the other guys. Connect your features to benefits, always keeping the customer’s perspective in mind.
Create a feature-benefit matrix:
Feature
Benefit
How We are Better
Feature 1
Benefit 1
Compared to…
Feature 2
Benefit 2
Compared to…
The table above gives you a guide to building out a list of your features, what benefits they offer, or pain points they address, and finally how they compare to your current competition.
Try to rank the benefits by which ones solve the most pressing customer pain points, and what benefits are truly unique to your offering. If something is not unique then, how can you make it seem unique?
Another thing to think about is to quantify benefits where possible.
Point out time saved if your product or service will save time and do something faster or more efficiently. If you are selling to the more affluent, this is a good angle to take, as cost is not their primary concern, but speed of results or relief from pain. The affluent will more happily trade time for money when it makes sense to do so.
Conversely you can highlight the money saved through your product or service. This will often be more important to those that are more budget conscientious. Is your product or service less expensive than the competition but offers similar quality or results then this is a good angle to highlight.
Emotional Triggers in Your Unique Selling Proposition
It may seem logical to use logic to sell a benefit, but emotional triggers are what really get a customer or client’s motor running.
Just as a good song can be felt deeply, a good USP speaks deeply to your customers or clients.
Think about how you can show, emphasize, or create the following.
- Trust: How can you demonstrate reliability and credibility?
- Experience, past work, etc.
- Relief: How does your product alleviate pain or solve problems?
- How exactly does [A] fix [B]?
- Convenience: How does your offering make life easier?
- No longer worry about [X].
- Status: Does your product confer prestige or exclusivity?
- Think luxury brands and high-end goods.
- Belonging: Does your brand create a sense of community?
- Be a part of [X] movement.
For each emotional trigger:
1. Identify how your product or service evokes this emotion
2. Think of specific examples or scenarios that illustrate this
3. Consider how you can incorporate these emotional appeals into your USP
Narrow Your Focus
With all this focus on the ONE thing that makes you different. Don’t be a wet blanket with vague or broad statements. Narrow your focus down to the one thing that you have that truly makes you stand out.
- List all potential differentiators you’ve identified
- Evaluate each one based on
- How unique it truly is
- How valuable it is to your target audience
- How sustainable it is long-term
- Choose the single most compelling differentiator
Remember, it’s better to be a master of one thing than a jack of all trades!
Test Your Ideas
Run your ideas by your team and a sample of your target audience. Look for clarity and resonance – you want something that’ll really stick in their noggins.
Start by presenting your top USP ideas to your team and get feedback on clarity, believability, and impact. With this information in hand, refine your ideas further.
Once you have something that you think might work, you can conduct surveys or focus groups with target customers.
- Present your USP ideas and gather feedback
- Ask questions like
- Does this resonate with you? Why or why not?
- Does this make our product/service more appealing?
- Is this clear and easy to understand?
Crafting the USP
If something is still not standing out to you from your previous research and investigation you can go back to basics. Here’s a simple, actionable formula that’s sure to be the cat’s pajamas:
"[Company/Product] is the only [category] that [unique benefit/feature] for [target audience] who [pain point/desire]."
While your USP does not have to follow this exact formula, it should strive to address the same points. Keep it short and sweet – aim for 1 to 2 sentences that’ll really pack a punch.
Step-by-Step USP Creation Cheat Sheet
1. Fill in the blanks:
– [Company/Product]: Your brand name
– [category]: The type of product or service you offer
– [unique benefit/feature]: Your key differentiator
– [target audience]: Your ideal customer
– [pain point/desire]: The main problem you solve or desire you fulfill
2. Refine and polish:
– Eliminate any unnecessary words
– Use strong, active language
– Ensure it’s easy to understand and remember
3. Test variations:
– Create 3-5 versions of your USP
– Test them with your team and target audience
– Choose the one that resonates most strongly
What to Offer
Focus on what makes you competitive:
– Quality: Are you materially better than the competition? How?
– Price: Can you undercut the other guys without sacrificing quality? What’s your unique pricing model?
– Service: What extra mile do you go that others won’t? How do you exceed customer expectations?
What to Avoid
– Vague benefits: Be specific about how you help customers
– Jargon that’ll make their heads spin: Use clear, simple language
– Over-promising: Only claim what you can consistently deliver
Using Your Unique Selling Proposition
Now that you have your USP nailed down there are quite a few ways you can leverage it in your marketing efforts. Online and off.
Integrate your USP into all your marketing efforts
- Website content:
- Feature your USP prominently on your homepage
- Incorporate it into your “About Us” page
- Weave it into product descriptions and service pages
- Social media posts:
- Create content that highlights your USP
- Use your USP as a hashtag
- Share customer stories that demonstrate your USP in action
- Email marketing:
- Include your USP in email signatures
- Use it as a subject line for promotional emails
- Create an email series that breaks down each aspect of your USP
- Paid advertising:
- Use your USP as the main message in ad copy
- Create visuals that illustrate your USP
- Target keywords related to your USP
- Sales presentations and client pitches:
- Open with your USP to set the tone
- Structure your presentation around the key elements of your USP
- Use case studies that demonstrate your USP in real-world scenarios
Test, Tweak, and Adapt
Don’t be afraid to modify and evolve your unique selling proposition over time. Especially if you are a new company or brand, you may not have hit the exact right note the first time so give yourself permission to change it up if needed.
- Gather feedback like it’s going out of style:
- Conduct regular customer surveys
- Monitor social media mentions
- Analyze customer service interactions
- Monitor engagement and conversion rates:
- Track website metrics (bounce rate, time on site, etc.)
- Measure email open and click-through rates
- Analyze social media engagement
- A/B test different versions of your USP:
- Create variations of your USP
- Test them in different marketing channels
- Measure which version performs best
- Keep an eye on how your new USP affects your key performance indicators:
- Sales growth
- Customer acquisition cost
- Customer lifetime value
- Brand awareness metrics
- Regularly review market trends:
- Subscribe to industry publications
- Attend trade shows and conferences
- Monitor competitor activities
- Stay connected with your customers:
- Conduct annual customer satisfaction surveys
- Host focus groups or customer advisory boards
- Engage with customers on social media
- Be willing to evolve:
- If your USP no longer resonates, be prepared to update it
- Consider how new technologies or market shifts might affect your USP
- Always be brainstorming new ways to differentiate your brand
Wrapping Up
Remember, a great USP isn’t set in stone. It’s a living part of your brand that should grow and evolve with your business and your customers’ needs. Your business should be improving with time, don’t be afraid to change your USP as your business changes.
Crafting a Killer USP
Want a free PDF guide on crafting your unique selling proposition? Click the button below!
