Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
OBJECTIVES
1. To learn the process of developing a USP for a brand.
2. To compare and study USPs of brands in different product lines.
3. Identify if USPs have been successfully developed or not.
4. To understand importance of developing USP on the Internet.
5.
What is a USP? The USP very clearly answers the question, "Why should I do
business with you instead of your competitors?"
The USP may be used repetitively in your marketing literature to build the
customer's or client's identification of your company with your product or service.
There are two major benefits in developing the USP. First, it clearly differentiates
your business in the eyes of your current and potential customers or clients.
Second, it focuses your team on delivering the promise of the USP, helping to
improve your internal performance.
For example, who do you think of when you hear the phrase, "Fresh, hot pizza
delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed"?
Dominos virtually took over the delivered pizza market with that USP. Notice
Dominos didn't even promise the pizza tasted good.
How do you think a Dominos delivery person would behave compared to a
delivery person who works for a competitor without this USP? Do you think the
team at Dominos made a considerable effort to develop systems to assure the USP
was met?
Beware of the "cutesy phrase." The USP does not need to be expressed in 25
words or less. It could be a detailed set of performance standards. It should be
tested to assure the USP addresses a need that is truly important to the buyer.
Would you like some assistance in developing your USP? We would glad to act
as a facilitator for you and your team in this process.
What is a unique selling proposition or USP? Very simply stated, your USP is what
differentiates your product from your competition's product.
1. Focus on a niche. In other words, before you develop the USP, find your target
market. Who exactly are you selling to?
2. Fill a void. This is similar to finding a niche. Look for a void in the market and fill
it with your USP.
3. Concentrate on "pain" or "pleasure."
4. State how your product will solve a problem.
5. Look at your competition.
6. Tell the customer what they are going to get - what's in it for them.
7. Make it "measurable." Time and price are measurable qualities.
More Tips:
Get a pen and paper out and ask yourself these questions:
The best way to find out where you need the most work is to list all the needs and desires
your competitors are already fulfilling. Maybe you are fulfilling these desires too, but is it
possible that you could articulate it better than they can? Sure!
A good USP (unique selling proposition) is one that fulfills a void in the marketplace. It
is communicated clearly and concisely so that your prospects "get it."
It's also known as your "big promise." So, it's important that not only do you
communicate it in everything you do and say... but that you standby it - always!
To formulate your marketing campaign, along with the lines of your USP, I suggest
asking yourself the following questions.
Treat your customers like dear and valued friends. Give them what they want. Treat them
with respect and courtesy. Communicate with them often. Let them know you care about
their wants, needs and desires.
If you've asked yourself the questions above, you are 1000 percent better than your
competition. Rarely will ANY business ask themselves these questions. It shows in their
poor revenues.
Always remember: It's all about their needs, wants and desires. It's never about yours.
In a world where there are more and more products and services every day, your
customers are on advertising overload all the time. So they pick something to believe and
hold that notion until a message breaks through and persuades them to change.
People can't hold warring ideas in their heads. They can't believe that the Norton
Anthology is the best study guide for English literature, then study from a set of Cliffs
Notes and believe they're doing the best they can to pass their exams. They can't believe
that all paper towels are pretty much alike, buy one that costs more than most, and think
that they are wise shoppers. The point is, positioning is your effort to claim a high ground
in that overloaded prospect's head and hold it against competition.
Positioning is the basis for all your communications--your packaging and product design,
sales promotions, advertising, and public relations. Everything you do must reinforce that
position--otherwise you just undermine your marketing efforts and sow confusion instead
of confidence. Positioning is serious business. You must choose the right position, for
now and down the road.
Do the work now to develop a clear position for your business vis-à-vis your competitors.
You'll ensure that you get the most from your advertising budget. The truth is that with
enough money, you can buy success in advertising. Mediocre, unfocused messages from
a company without a clear position will generate sales surprisingly well if that company
buys enough time or space to pound the message home. But think how much farther that
budget could take you if you had a focused message, a unique selling proposition, and a
target audience for your offering. Positioning - and the creative approach that grows from
it--make the difference.
As a small business owner, service provider or medical professional, one of the biggest
challenges you will face is telling others what you do. The challenge comes from the fact
that most people are only interested if what you do fits what they need or want.
Otherwise they are not interested. You must tell the listener how your product or service
can benefit him, and how you can do it better than others who do what you do.
Your unique selling proposition is the core of your marketing message. It tells suspects,
prospects and customers about the value you provide in a clear, concise format. It is not a
job description – “I wash windows” but a statement of purpose with a benefit – “I
improve your view of the world outside your window.”
1. Outward Focus. Instead of talking about you, your offering or your credentials, your
USP should focus outside, on the prospect or customer.
2. Targets a specific group or niche. The best USP statements are personalized to the
group or individual you are addressing. For example, when speaking to a doctor, I would
say
“I help medical professionals find more profitable candidates for their elective
procedures.”
When speaking to a diverse group (such as the chamber of commerce) I would be more
general:
“hot communications designs hair-on-fire marketing programs that help you attract more
clients and earn more money.”
Stating your USP clearly and quickly makes it easy for your prospect to remember you
when you follow up. What you do should be self-explanatory.
4. Offers an obvious benefit. Tell your prospect how you can ease his pain. This
presupposes that you understand the problems of your target market, and have a solution.
Some people get this backward, and create a solution in search of a problem (or create a
problem in search of more problems!).
5. Avoids jargon. Engineers and purveyors of technical services love to talk the talk.
Here’s one I heard recently:
Even if your target market is highly specialized, you should assume that you share only
one common language – English.
6. Integrates easily with your marketing materials. Your USP should become of your
branding efforts, and should appear on all your marketing materials, including your
business cards, stationary, and website and brochures. In some instances, your USP
becomes your brand:
Ultimately, your USP becomes your primary marketing message, your elevator speech.
Much like scriptwriters who are coached to sum up the plot in one sentence, your unique
selling proposition provides a clear, concise benefit statement that positively represents
you and your company, and leaves a memorable and favorable impression in the mind of
your prospect.
Top 7 Ways To Design Your USP
(Unique Selling Proposition)
What is a USP? The USP very clearly answers the question, "Why should I do business
with you instead of your competitors?"
The USP may be used repetitively in your marketing literature to build the customer's or
client's identification of your company with your product or service.
Based primarily on Fuller K, "The Levi 501 Campaign, ADMAP, March 1995
Until quite recently, a view prevailed that brand campaigns achieved the most impact by
being one dimensional. At the extreme the brand was still conceptualised as a product
that was best supported by a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). This did have the virtue
of management simplicity, but truly powerful brand organisations now direct
personalities with more intriguing breadth and depth.
Whilst Levi's has always thought of its friendship with consumers in more broadly
empathic terms, than purists of the USP school, it was only in the great Levis 501
campaigns that the brand fully visualised the multifaceted personality it wanted to be.
As the figure below shows, Levi's used seven dominant character traits.
Romance X X X
Sexual
X X X X X X
Attraction
Physical
X X
Prowess
Resourcefuln
X X X X
ess
Rebellion X X
Independence X X X
Being
X X X X X
Admired
2. Budweiser as Buddy
WCBN file (1995) featuring extract from Randazzo Sal (1993), "Mythmaking on
Madison Avenue", Probus (Chicago)
"The unique power of advertising goes beyond its ability to build and maintain
successful, enduring brands by creating perceptual entities that reflect the consumer's
values, dreams and fantasies.
The following inventory of US consumer codes helps to explain "Budweiserness" by
suggesting seven of the brand's most significant consumer codes (together with an Anglo
Saxon's attempt to translate meanings for non-American readers).
This Bud's for you => Budweiser's long running brand slogan
Red, White & Blue => brand's packaging colours (corresponding to America's
national colours)
American eagle => the company's oldest trademark modelled on the bald
eagle (America's national symbol)
Genuine article => the heritage of being America's number 1 brand of beer
Some points to digest from this partial inventory of Budweiser identities are:
Once you have examined how intimately a brand's vital reserves depend on its inventory
of identities in consumers minds, it is difficult to attach credibility to any analysis of
brand positioning, brand valuation or brand 'anything' unless it includes an integrated
analysis of brand identity.
Exercise: which of Budweiser’s identifiers do you think was being used in which of these
varied communications goals?
Positioning Is Important
Al Ries and Jack Trout coined the term "positioning" in the early 1980s in their book,
"Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind." Although a few years have passed since the
book was released, the core ideas they express are just as true today.
Positioning refers to the way a product, service, or person is presented to the buying
public. To properly position yourself on the Internet, you must consider many factors:
• Your name
• Your Web address (URL)
• The benefits of what you offer
• Your personal strengths and weaknesses
• The strengths and weaknesses of your competition
How people generally perceive the category in which you seek an impact
Ries and Trout contend that positioning is not something you do to a product, service, or
to yourself. It's something you do to a human mind. It's all about perception and how you
fit in -- especially when compared to the other perceptions that already exist in each
potential fan's brain.
Crafting the best identity for you should be based on what already exists within you. In
other words, you shouldn't conjure up an image you feel would be cool and then mold
yourself into that identity.
The brand you create should be based on who you truly are as a human being. It should
reflect your real skills and personality. Remember the pop duo Milli Vanilli and the
fallout that occurred when it was discovered they didn't actually sing on their best-selling
album? Faking it doesn't work.
The same goes for the person on the other end of the positioning equation: your potential
fan. A person's preferences and view of the world are influenced mainly by the memories
and attitudes that already exist in his or her mind, which explains why most people aren't
easily swayed by dazzling advertising blitzes and publicity campaigns. If they were,
every dot-com company that ran a Super Bowl ad would be prospering today. The truth
is, they're not.
Remember the Pets.com sock puppet? The company used the mascot in a flurry of
television ads in early 2000. Nine months later, when the Web site shut its doors, it was
just another stray dog that had lost its way.
The mistake Pets.com made was assuming that, since consumers were spending millions
online buying books and airline tickets, people would also buy pet supplies in the same
manner - if only the company got the word out on a grand enough scale.
So ... how can you make sure that your personal brand image makes an impact on the
Internet?
But many law firms don't know their USP. Even if they didn't they would have difficulty
articulating it. Yet it's something that clients look for. It makes all the difference in
whether your firm is chosen. Certainly your USP is an important point to put on your
Web site. Yet it rarely appears.
What I'm talking about is your Unique Selling Proposition. What exactly is so special
about your law firm?
I can tell that many law firms have not figured out their USP. Their web sites pronounce
that the firm "has a tradition of excellence and adherence to the highest ethical
standards." Others say that the firm is "committed to building a seamless network of
offices staffed by locally qualified lawyers who are indigenous to the business
communities in which they and their clients operate."
That's a lot of words, but they don't say anything. You could take these grand phrases and
apply them to any law firm anywhere. They may be selling propositions, but there's
nothing unique about them.
Still other Web sites don't give any USP, they make no claim to uniqueness at all. The
Web sites just list the firm name and a set of practice areas. Like a billboard that's been in
the weather to long, it's merely there, and no one pays attention.
A variety of claims
Take a look at your Web site - where is your USP set forth? Here are a variety of claims,
none of which are USPs:
We are big. You'll see this on sites that say "500 lawyers in 20 cities" or something like
that. The statistics may be accurate, but the claim is generic. Headcount numbers will
separate the 3,000-lawyer firm from the 3-lawyer firm, but that doesn't sell a firm well.
Clients don't buy lawyers according to quantity. Clients hire individual lawyers for their
legal matters, and the firm Web site should show how incomparable each is.
We are old. I'm never impressed by this claim. What difference does it make to a client if
the firm has been around since 1840 or 1940? Give or take a century, it doesn't matter.
What clients are concerned with are current legal events, new legislation and timely
changes in the law. A law firm Web site should demonstrate that a law firm knows what's
going on right now, not that it helped the commander of the fort deal with the gold rush.
We are smart. Yes, law firms love to state that they hire the smartest law grads and
boast that they went to the finest schools. Web biographies never fail to mention that the
lawyer was Order of the Coif and got a degree magna cum laude. But this doesn't bring in
new business. Clients can't tell a bad law school from a good one, and they already
presume that the lawyers are smart. Smartness is not a differentiator.
We are honest. Other versions of this statement are "we have integrity" and "we are
ethical." This claim is no help at all. Clients already expect a law firm to be honorable,
moral and trustworthy. Nothing could be more basic. Furthermore, how can the Web site
prove this point? There's no sincere way to support this assertion.
We do good work. Again, clients expect this. If I found a site that said "we have a
reputation for successfully managing complex legal matters," I would guess this is better
than a reputation for bungling them. In any event, clients have no way to measure the
quality of legal work. All they can tell is how long it took to get and how much it cost.
We practice in many areas. Law firms love to list every possible area of law they know.
Not that it matters to clients, but they'll list real estate, real estate tax, real estate
transactions and commercial real estate practices. There will be securities litigation,
commercial litigation and plain vanilla litigation. Typically these reflect organizational
distinctions within the firm, but they don't mean anything to clients.
In many marketing conferences, and the best part is always when a panel of general
counsel tell the audience what they look for in law firms. They will go through their pet
peeves and their special favorites, but eventually they'll disclose what they are looking
for in a law firm. These items are the unique selling propositions that matter to clients:
What industries do you have experience with? It matters to a client if the law firm knows
their industry. Clients see themselves as a member of an industry, and they follow the
trends that affect it. They do not see themselves as a member of a law firm practice
group. Client are impressed if the lawyer has knowledge of what's going on in their
industry
Do you represent similar businesses? If the client is a retail clothing store, they want to
know if you've represented other similar businesses. It makes clients comfortable if you
have, because you'll know how their business works and what's important to them.
Have you handled similar cases? Clients want to look at a law firm Web site and find
examples of transactions and cases you've handled. It demonstrates that you know what
you're doing, you've gotten results and you've been through the issues before.
There are many more elements to a unique selling proposition. Your USP is going to be
different from your competitors'. The sooner you define what it is, the easier it will be for
clients to choose your firm.
Summary
In this lesson you learnt what is Unique Selling Proposition (USP), how important it is
in the marketing matrix, what are the factors to consider while planning for a brand’s
USP even on the Internet.
Assignments
1. Study a brand’s USP and write an account of how the brand communication has
been built around this. Also refer to competition and the USP they have
developed.
2. What are the key elements involved in the Unique Selling Proposition of any
brand? Give an example of a brand where all these elements have been
incorporated. Has this been done successfully and has it benefited the brand ?