For those of you who don’t know what a USP is, I’ll explain immediately: Unique Selling Point.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been looking at whether you’re suited to starting your own business, what kind of business you might want to run and the different types of set-up. So today I’m going to look at a good promotional tool you can use to make your own or you boss’s business stand out from the crowd. What you need is a USP!
Strictly speaking, a USP is something offered by a business that none of their competitors offers (that’s what makes it ‘unique’, of course). For example, Domino’s Pizza had the following genuine USP when it launched:
You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less – or it’s free.
Of course, nowadays many other pizza delivery companies also offer this, which means it is no longer unique.
When the Aldi supermarket chain first came to Britain from Germany they sold high quality food much more cheaply than the other big supermarket chains. They still claim to do this, but many of their competitors have taken up the challenge.
And that’s really the problem with the USP concept: if a benefit is genuinely unique (and attractive to customers), in a very short time a company’s competitors will usually adopt it as well.
So, nowadays the term USP is normally used to refer to the key benefit a company is offering through its advertising in an attempt to differentiate it from its competitors. Some well-known products that have clearly-defined USPs include the following:
Head & Shoulders shampoo – gets rid of dandruff
Olay – gives you younger-looking skin
M&Ms – melt in your mouth, not in your hand
Of course, none of these is strictly speaking a ‘unique’ benefit – many other shampoos will get rid of dandruff, for example. What you are really talking about here are the key sales points that you need to emphasise in your advertising. In a previous blog I’ve looked at the difference between features and benefits and some people use the terms ‘USP’ to mean the main benefit of their product or service.
So, why not sit down and think what the USP is for your business. What’s special about your products or services? How will they solve your customers’ problems or enhance their lives? You can then use this information to put together a better sales pitch. Try to look at it from the customers’ point of view – what can your product/service do for them that the competitors can’t?
And, if you are particularly interested in this subject, or feel you need some help, both our Complete Copywriter course and our Professional Sales Techniques course go into far more detail and also show you how to turn features into benefits when you’re marketing your product.
Author: Diana Nadin
