Welcome to Unique Selling Proposition, your do-it-yoursel\ue004 guide to
discovering your competitive advantage and uniqueness, and developing a
strong guarantee.
Tis is more than \u2018good service\u2019, or \u2018good price\u2019 - it\u2019s all about knowing
what it is that makes you special, and being able to speci\ue002cally explain it
to your customers.
Once you\u2019ve been through this guide, you should know exactly what
it is that makes you unique. You may discover there is nothing that
makes you unique at all - that\u2019s where the real \ue004un begins. You get to
rethink your business look at it \ue004rom outside the box and INVEN\ue003 a
uniqueness.
You\u2019ll also have a \ue004ull guarantee, written down exactly as it should be. Tis
guarantee will be power\ue004ul and will stop your potential customers dead in
their tracks. Te guarantee is heavily linked to the USP - it can be the same
thing. For example, i\ue004 you are a \ue004uneral parlour that guarantees that everyone will be
smiling by the end o\ue004 the \ue004uneral, you\u2019d have a pretty attention grabbing USP right there.
Section 3 contains examples o\ue004 unique businesses, with an explanation o\ue004 what they do di\ue001erently and how it works \ue004or them. Some are real - some are imagined. You may even \ue002nd a business like yours, and be able to directly steal an idea or two. It also contains examples o\ue004 power\ue004ul guarantees, plus a \ue004ew marketing strategies that \ue004eature these guarantees. You\u2019ll quickly learn that a strong guarantee can be enough to base a strong marketing campaign on.
When you are testing and measuring, there is no \ue004ailure (except the \ue004ailure to record
your results and analyse them). Every step brings you one step closer to the right
\ue004ormula, and the right approach.
I\ue004 you approach your marketing expecting everything to work \ue002rst time, you\u2019ll be bitter and twisted when you discover it doesn\u2019t. You may give up be\ue004ore you should.
It\u2019s essential that you meticulously record every result. It\u2019s extra work,
but you\u2019ll be glad when you have a marketing strategy which you know
will produce results. Tat con\ue002dence only comes \ue004rom testing and
measuring.
Once you develop your uniqueness and guarantee you need to start testing it. How do you do that? Easy - run it by your customers, and start mentioning it to your potential customers.
I\ue004 they seem impressed and you start converting more enquiries to sales,
that\u2019s a good sign that you\u2019re on the right track. I\ue004 it doesn\u2019t seem to make any
di\ue001erence, perhaps you need to go back and bee\ue004 it up. Remember, a uniqueness
means nothing i\ue004 it\u2019s not a uniqueness that people care about.
1) You \ue002nish writing it then stash it away in your \ue002ling cabinet \ue004orever
2) You do use it but nobody notices or cares
3) Tere\u2019s already 3 competitors out there with the same guarantee and uniqueness
4) Your USP and guarantee doesn\u2019t target something that your customers care about - \ue004or example, a hairdresser that
cares!!
Ok, now you know what a weak USP and guarantee is, it\u2019s easy to work out what a good one is.
For a start, it has to have IMPAC\ue003 - it needs to make people sit up and take notice, and it has to get them thinking
What about your business? You need to think o\ue004 these aspects o\ue004 your service that make a di\ue001erence to people. Tis is covered in plenty more depth in the next section, but start thinking now. Your uniqueness needs to tackle your competitors head on, and your guarantee needs to answer the most common \ue004rustration.
