Your Unique Selling Point
Your Unique Selling Point
When developing your USP, it's important to put yourself in your customers' shoes. Look at your product or service from the point of view of someone thinking about buying it. What would be a compelling reason for that customer to buy from you instead of your competition?
The Benefits of Your USP
When potential customers come to your website, they'll be focused on the benefits of your product or service. Essentially, what can it do for them. How does using your product solve a problem or improve an outcome. The key to unlocking the decision to buy is providing benefits that outweigh what the competition offers.
However, you need to know the difference between a benefit and a feature. Benefits are about how your product adds value for your customer. Features relate to what goes into making the product, and how it's delivered to customers. This is a very important distinction because your customers aren't necessarily interested in features. But they will be motivated by benefits.
For example, the lifetime guarantee on your products is a feature. The benefit is that customers don't assume any risk by buying your product. A powerful USP is one that is focused on benefits that only you can offer.
Find the Benefits of Your Products
To create a list of all the benefits your product or service offers, start with listing all the features. When you can't think of any more, go through each feature and look at it from the customer's point of view. What benefit comes with each feature?
Your Unique Selling Point should only focus on benefits that you offer. So, eliminate the ones from your list that your competition also offers. If you find yourself with no benefits left, go back to your list of features. Keep working on this until you can clearly find one or more benefits that separate you from the rest of the field. You might have to tweak some features so that they result in unique benefits.
When you finally come up with your list of benefits, decide which one is the most suitable as the focus of your USP. Ask yourself these questions:
• Which benefits are the most important to your customer?
• Which benefits are the most difficult for your competitors to offer?
• Which benefits can be most easily understood by my customers?
What is a Good USP?
When you've settled on a couple of benefits you can use, it's time to write down your USP. Start off with a paragraph that describes the unique benefit or list of benefits. Eliminate all unnecessary words, you want to have one sentence only that says it all.
A good USP should be:
• Only one sentence.
• Clearly written so that everyone can understand it.
• Comprise of benefits that are unique to your company or product.
When you have your USP, make sure that it is incorporated in all your on- and offline marketing materials to potential customers. Your USP will eventually attract a strong following of loyal customers and your online business will thrive.
Your Unique Selling Point - To learn more about this author, visit Pasquale Spadafora's Website.
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For any business web site, the single most important asset it can possess, one that answers the question that every customer asks: "Why should I buy from you?" is the unique selling point (USP). A great and compelling USP sets you apart from your competition and makes your web marketing a lot more effective.
When developing your USP, it's important to put yourself in your customers' shoes. Look at your product or service from the point of view of someone thinking about buying it. What would be a compelling reason for that customer to buy from you instead of your competition?
The Benefits of Your USP
When potential customers come to your website, they'll be focused on the benefits of your product or service. Essentially, what can it do for them. How does using your product solve a problem or improve an outcome. The key to unlocking the decision to buy is providing benefits that outweigh what the competition offers.
However, you need to know the difference between a benefit and a feature. Benefits are about how your product adds value for your customer. Features relate to what goes into making the product, and how it's delivered to customers. This is a very important distinction because your customers aren't necessarily interested in features. But they will be motivated by benefits.
For example, the lifetime guarantee on your products is a feature. The benefit is that customers don't assume any risk by buying your product. A powerful USP is one that is focused on benefits that only you can offer.
Find the Benefits of Your Products
To create a list of all the benefits your product or service offers, start with listing all the features. When you can't think of any more, go through each feature and look at it from the customer's point of view. What benefit comes with each feature?
Your Unique Selling Point should only focus on benefits that you offer. So, eliminate the ones from your list that your competition also offers. If you find yourself with no benefits left, go back to your list of features. Keep working on this until you can clearly find one or more benefits that separate you from the rest of the field. You might have to tweak some features so that they result in unique benefits.
When you finally come up with your list of benefits, decide which one is the most suitable as the focus of your USP. Ask yourself these questions:
• Which benefits are the most important to your customer?
• Which benefits are the most difficult for your competitors to offer?
• Which benefits can be most easily understood by my customers?
What is a Good USP?
When you've settled on a couple of benefits you can use, it's time to write down your USP. Start off with a paragraph that describes the unique benefit or list of benefits. Eliminate all unnecessary words, you want to have one sentence only that says it all.
A good USP should be:
• Only one sentence.
• Clearly written so that everyone can understand it.
• Comprise of benefits that are unique to your company or product.
When you have your USP, make sure that it is incorporated in all your on- and offline marketing materials to potential customers. Your USP will eventually attract a strong following of loyal customers and your online business will thrive.
Your Unique Selling Point - To learn more about this author, visit Pasquale Spadafora's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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