How many marketing terms have you heard, that make you go hmmmm? There is never a shortage of marketing terms that get tossed around, that non-marketing folks don’t fully understand the relevance of. One of those terms is a USP – Unique Selling Proposition. Here’s why you need to know what it is, and what it means for your business.

Crafting your unique selling proposition (USP) is an important component in running a long-term, successful business. The process of creating and writing down your beliefs and values, and aligning them with your goals and strategy, will help you to create an action plan for success. If you don’t understand why you do something, and you can’t explain why to others, it will be difficult to create either products or materials to market the products.

What Your USP Really Means to You and Your Customers

 

The USP Helps Small Businesses Differentiate

If you have a small business, you won’t be able to compete on the things larger businesses often compete on, such as price. Instead, you’ll need to focus on one thing that you stand for that is different from your competition so that you can take some of the market from the big guys. You can do it if you focus on sub-audiences, rather than the larger audience.

The USP Helps a Small Business Narrow Their Niche

For instance if you provide content to small business owners, narrow down what type of content you provide and to which small business owners. “Small Business Owners” is too large of an audience. Instead of defining your audience with this broad category, perhaps you want to write content for career coaches who focus on helping 40-plus-year-old people get new jobs?

The USP Helps Small Businesses Focus

That’s your audience, so your value proposition needs to be discovered next. Understanding that will also help you market to your customers in a way that separates you from the competition. Perhaps your competition focuses on inexpensive or even cheap content. You will focus instead of writing well-researched content delivered on time, every time. In this way you are not competing on price, you’re competing on quality.

What Your USP Means for You

With a well thought out USP, you can decide exactly what you want and plan how you’re going to get it. It can assist with seeking appropriate feedback, and gives you a direction for taking action to reach your goals. A good USP can even help you work on changing your approach until you succeed because you know what makes you stand out.

What Your USP Means for Your Customer

A well thought out USP helps your customers understand what value you bring to the table and how you’re different from the competition. It tells your customer why they should buy from you instead of someone else. It provides a promise to them from you about your products or services that differentiates you from the others.

Bottom Line

Creating a USP is going to put you at a competitive advantage because it will help direct your actions today and tomorrow, as well as succinctly inform your customers about important information that will help them make a choice to purchase your goods or services.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya