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Creating Your Unique Value Proposition

Written by: Corte Swearingen

Article Overview: Defining your value proposition is the first step in clearly identifying how your products and services are different from your competition. This article gives strategies on developing and defining your unique value to prospects and customers.

Creating Your Unique Value Proposition

Do you know the unique value you bring to customers?

Defining your value proposition is the first step in clearly identifying how your products and services are different from your competition.

What Makes You Different?

The first step in creating a unique value proposition is to discover what your competitors do well and then find a way to either do it better, or offer a guarantee that puts you on a completely different level.

Here are a couple of ways to discover more about your competition.

1. Buy from them.

Buying from your competitors allows you to see how they handle the sales process from beginning to end. In addition, you may also start receiving their emails and brochures, allowing you to understand how they are marketing to their customers.

If one of your competitors sells products on their website, go on and make a purchase. Call their Customer Service and ask a few questions. Do you get the information you need in an efficient manner? Was it easy to find the product you wanted? Was the checkout process easy? Did you get an email confirmation right away? Did the product ship quickly? Did the company follow up with any additional marketing?

Making an actual purchase from your competition can teach you quite a bit about what they do well and what they can improve upon. It can also give you some ideas for serving your customers better.

2. Sign up for their newsletter.

Many companies have a regular newsletter they send out to clients via email. Find the competitors that do this and sign up for it. What types of information are they providing to their customers? Are they offering real value in their newsletter or are they simply pushing their products?

Studying how your competition provides value can help you position your own products and services and to make them unique.

After you’ve spent some time understanding your competition, create a spreadsheet that compares what they do well with what you do well. Doing this always provides additional ideas for improving the value you provide your customer base.

Ideas for Making Your Company Unique

One easy way to make your offers unique is to package goods and services together in a new way. Try packaging main items along with a few accessory items. If you’re a service provider, try offering extended services options at no additional charge.

You can also create value through excellence in customer service. Vow to return customer calls within 60 minutes or provide a compelling guarantee that install differentiates your business. There are many ways to stand out from the crowd that don't rely on a particular product or service offering. Think about it and be creative.

Once you have defined the unique value you can bring your clients, make sure you communicate this value through all your marketing channels, including your website, direct mail, brochures and newsletters.

Creating and communicating your unique value proposition is the groundwork for your entire marketing program. Don't ignore it!

Related Articles
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  How To Do Effective Local Marketing & Advertising
  Death of the Unique Selling Proposition
  Are You In Search of the Unique
  A GREAT USP IS THE KEY TO GREAT PUBLICITY

Article Tags: br 2, brochures, checkout, confirmation, customer service, product ship, spreadsheet, unique value proposition, what your competitors



Related Forum Posts
Re: This is Marketing Warfare! - Hey GT, I guess this was from a while back, and it'll test your memory a bit but could you possibly elaborate on Unique Selling Proposition? Can you give us some examples of good USPs?
Re: Can you outsource your product launch? - Yes that what I am talking about. Creating a buzz for your online product launch basically. Is this part of what you do?
Re: Social Media & Digg, Google, MySpace, and YouTube - Hi Kathy, What I meant about it being worth it was in the sense that I described. Creating multiple accounts for various sites and posting and ranking your own stuff. It's very time consuming to say the least. I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there that has done this and thinks it's beneficial.
Re Thinking Smarter - Hi Beat, Thanks for sharing this win. It's inspiring to hear about. Can you imagine what our life (and our businesses) could look like if we continued to open up to our creativity? Every day becomes an exciting journey for us and even those around us. Happy "Creating"... Tami
What are your success criteria? - Out of curiousity, what has to be present for you to know that your business is a success? The top three things for me are: 1. Maintaining a 6 figure income year in and year out. 2. Creating and promoting my own products. 3. Income not solely dependent upon my personal effort. How about yours?


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