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If You Don't Differentiate, You're Dead!
This article will explain why a Unique Selling Position (USP) is critical to your success. Your marketing exists in a confusing and complex world. Think for a minute about how many choices you have as a consumer in just about any product category. Its not unusual to have dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of alternatives when you're shopping for a product or service.
This article will explain why a Unique Selling Position (USP) is critical to your success. Your marketing exists in a confusing and complex world. Think for a minute about how many choices you have as a consumer in just about any product category. Its not unusual to have dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of alternatives when you’re shopping for a product or service.
If you doubt me, just jump on the Internet and see how many businesses would love to sell you a pair of shoes or a briefcase or a shirt. My guess is that your alternatives could number in the thousands.
That’s a good thing right? Sure . . . if you’re the consumer. What about all of us marketing professionals who come to work everyday and try to find better ways of selling? How do we survive in such a world?
Your Advertising Must Set You Apart from Your Competitors. Your advertising must tell your prospect that you’re different from the competition. In a meeting with a client the other day, we turned to the yellow pages for their product category and there was a vivid example of how NOT to do advertising.
There were pages upon pages of ads. They all had one thing in common. They were so much the same that you could have substituted one company name for another without changing the ad in the slightest.
This was obviously a problem for all those companies—but an opportunity for my client! He (or she) who differentiates—wins!
When there’s no obvious difference, your customers will decide based on who has the best price. When customers are faced with hundreds of choices but dont see any difference between one business and another, what happens? The only thing they can compare is price, so that’s how they make their choice. If your differences arent clear, price will be the deciding factor for your customers. That’s not the ideal thing for you and your business. And it’s not that good for your customer either—especially if the value of your business is best appreciated through a long-term relationship with your customer. Customers who come to you because you have the best price will go to your competitors as soon as they find one with a better price. What if you’re the fastest gun in the West? But no matter how fast you are, there will always someone faster. That’s not a long-term game. It’s better and smarter to differentiate.
You can command higher prices through differentiation. Companies who effectively differentiate themselves from their competitors can demand higher prices for their products or services. The lowest price is not always the winner. Think about this for a minute. You don’t always buy the lowest price. Even if you’re the world’s biggest cheapskate you can differentiate between bruised and fresh vegetables and you’ll pay the higher price for the fresh produce. Right?
Aren’t your customers just the same? Yes. Obviously, you must be charging a reasonable price, but if you have established an important difference in your business, customers will pay extra to receive that benefit.
One of the most important paths to increased sales, more satisfied customers and better profits is to find the important point which makes your business different from your competitors. Then be sure to make that obvious in your advertising.