MARKETING YOUR POINT OF Difference
MARKETING YOUR POINT OF Difference
If you create a feature or what is known as a fact e.g. you have 11 different colours – that is not a benefit to the customer, so what you do is you use the “So what” test which is you take a feature of 11 colours and then you say in your mind So what does this mean to a customer and that means that will then give you the benefit answer. E.g. in this case gives them colours to choose from, colours to match a particular design need, gives them the ability to meet a particular colour perception that they have.
Generally there will be more benefits from one feature than just one simply because when you use the “So what” test it is easy to identify benefits according to the customers knowledge base.
Once you have established your 21 benefits list, and why 21, it is because all of us seem to think that 21 was a magic birthday for us, so it is a nice magic number, you can then start communicating this to your customers either by attaching it the back of a quotation, by putting it up on your website, communicating in your enews, or perhaps even taking 3 or 4 a week and putting them on to the bottom of your email signature or communicating it to staff in the form of signage or the vision message for the week.
In addition to your list of benefits you may have a “USP” this is a unique selling proposition one line description of the benefits of doing business with you.
This is not to be confused with an elevator speech where you have 30seconds and approximately 30 words to get across your opportunity, this is a unique point of difference, e.g. The Warehouse’s “Where everyone gets a bargain” there are a variety of ways to create one of these and it starts from examining the benefits, and then picking out key words that in your customers perception will help them understand in one sentence or 3 or 4 words exactly what it is that is uniquely different about you.
To say that you are great at supplying services for car washing is not enough, an example of a USP would be “For great looking clean cars” in those few words we have a very simple vision for the staff, customers and for everybody to agree to that the end result of you car washing service is that you get a great looking clean car.
The USP that you have created can then be put on the bottom of your email signature, it can be put in your advertising, attached to your brand name, can be put in your advertising and promotion and marketing, it can also be put on name badges, uniforms, building signage anywhere where a customer is likely to come into contact to help them understand the difference between you and another supplier in the market place.
Even if you have the lowest prices in town you can say that is a USP “The lowest prices in town” as long as you can justify it and it does not come into a problem with the Fair Trading Act of willingly misleading the customer.
One of the most important ways of marketing your point of difference is to promote the experience of your people, many customers want to know that you have skilled and experienced executives and management and members of your staff so that there will be less opportunity for quality problems.
By promoting the experience of your staff it is generally done by a photographic display of the staff head & shoulders with the number of years experience or the particular specialties that they have if you are promoting services and then for further details you might promote that on the website, in a printed brochure, and certainly include with your quotes, tenders & submitting for new customers and new business.
It is also a good idea to communicate to existing customers what other customers say about you in the form of excerpts from testimonials, these can be displayed on your website, put in brochures, put in a email, but it gives people the confidence that you are still continuously delivering your point of difference.
Remember it is more important to quote what others say about you than what you say about yourself – it works, it is valuable and it builds understanding.
Of course to get testimonials you have to ask for them and sometimes you have to promote the customer in what would be a good thing for them to say, you can then choose whether you want to reveal who the customer was or just use initials so that as long as you know where they are and you have a record of it but you are not going to get your customer plagued by lots of people ringing up to check up the references.
An ideal coffee table book is a testimonial book, so that customers who are waiting can see what other clients have said about you.
Marketing your point of difference is about communicating, the more frequently you communicate the point of difference the more your staff will consistently deliver it and the more your customers will understand it and cease going to others for quotations.
This article contributed by Richard P Gee, Marketing Strategy Consultant, Conference Speaker and Interactive Author. More details about Richard check out his website www.geewiz.co.nz
MARKETING YOUR POINT OF Difference - To learn more about this author, visit Richard Gee's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
To help you develop points of difference you might like to take the exercise of writing a list of 21 benefits of doing business with you. These should include such areas as your people, experience, location, products, services, brands and remember a benefit is an advantage to the customer.
If you create a feature or what is known as a fact e.g. you have 11 different colours – that is not a benefit to the customer, so what you do is you use the “So what” test which is you take a feature of 11 colours and then you say in your mind So what does this mean to a customer and that means that will then give you the benefit answer. E.g. in this case gives them colours to choose from, colours to match a particular design need, gives them the ability to meet a particular colour perception that they have.
Generally there will be more benefits from one feature than just one simply because when you use the “So what” test it is easy to identify benefits according to the customers knowledge base.
Once you have established your 21 benefits list, and why 21, it is because all of us seem to think that 21 was a magic birthday for us, so it is a nice magic number, you can then start communicating this to your customers either by attaching it the back of a quotation, by putting it up on your website, communicating in your enews, or perhaps even taking 3 or 4 a week and putting them on to the bottom of your email signature or communicating it to staff in the form of signage or the vision message for the week.
In addition to your list of benefits you may have a “USP” this is a unique selling proposition one line description of the benefits of doing business with you.
This is not to be confused with an elevator speech where you have 30seconds and approximately 30 words to get across your opportunity, this is a unique point of difference, e.g. The Warehouse’s “Where everyone gets a bargain” there are a variety of ways to create one of these and it starts from examining the benefits, and then picking out key words that in your customers perception will help them understand in one sentence or 3 or 4 words exactly what it is that is uniquely different about you.
To say that you are great at supplying services for car washing is not enough, an example of a USP would be “For great looking clean cars” in those few words we have a very simple vision for the staff, customers and for everybody to agree to that the end result of you car washing service is that you get a great looking clean car.
The USP that you have created can then be put on the bottom of your email signature, it can be put in your advertising, attached to your brand name, can be put in your advertising and promotion and marketing, it can also be put on name badges, uniforms, building signage anywhere where a customer is likely to come into contact to help them understand the difference between you and another supplier in the market place.
Even if you have the lowest prices in town you can say that is a USP “The lowest prices in town” as long as you can justify it and it does not come into a problem with the Fair Trading Act of willingly misleading the customer.
One of the most important ways of marketing your point of difference is to promote the experience of your people, many customers want to know that you have skilled and experienced executives and management and members of your staff so that there will be less opportunity for quality problems.
By promoting the experience of your staff it is generally done by a photographic display of the staff head & shoulders with the number of years experience or the particular specialties that they have if you are promoting services and then for further details you might promote that on the website, in a printed brochure, and certainly include with your quotes, tenders & submitting for new customers and new business.
It is also a good idea to communicate to existing customers what other customers say about you in the form of excerpts from testimonials, these can be displayed on your website, put in brochures, put in a email, but it gives people the confidence that you are still continuously delivering your point of difference.
Remember it is more important to quote what others say about you than what you say about yourself – it works, it is valuable and it builds understanding.
Of course to get testimonials you have to ask for them and sometimes you have to promote the customer in what would be a good thing for them to say, you can then choose whether you want to reveal who the customer was or just use initials so that as long as you know where they are and you have a record of it but you are not going to get your customer plagued by lots of people ringing up to check up the references.
An ideal coffee table book is a testimonial book, so that customers who are waiting can see what other clients have said about you.
Marketing your point of difference is about communicating, the more frequently you communicate the point of difference the more your staff will consistently deliver it and the more your customers will understand it and cease going to others for quotations.
This article contributed by Richard P Gee, Marketing Strategy Consultant, Conference Speaker and Interactive Author. More details about Richard check out his website www.geewiz.co.nz
MARKETING YOUR POINT OF Difference - To learn more about this author, visit Richard Gee's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
just surfing the web for ideas on establishing my "usp".
Every little bit that creates a new perspective is helpful.
thanking you........
Commented on MARKETING YOUR POINT OF Difference. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
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 |
|||
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 |
|||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
|||
Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
|||
David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
|||
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 |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Richard's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | |||||||
|
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
|
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 SWOT Analysis Template Disappearing Leader Basic SEO Guide Start Right Easy Product Ideas |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Blogs For Startups
Top Blogs To Watch In 2008 | |
 |
Top 50 Marketing Blogs
Top Blogs To Watch In 2008 | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
| ||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||