Marketing that Misses is Minus a USP

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Want to set yourself up for lack of results, low sales, and reduced profits?

Interested in mindlessly blowing your marketing and advertising budget?

Simple.

Ignore your unique value. Don't incorporate a Unique Selling Proposition into your marketing thinking.

clipped from torontomarketing.blogspot.com Every Successful Marketing Campaign Has One Since I started my Toronto marketing firm several clients have asked me to help them revisit a marketing project that had previously gone awry. I found a pattern. Every one of these marketing projects was missing one single thing: a genuine and compelling difference that is not only unique but is valued for its uniqueness. This difference has a name. It is called the Unique Selling Proposition. Understanding and communicating your Unique Selling Proposition is the secret to delivering a customized marketing message that is meaningful to your clients. A marketing campaign that influences people is not just about great graphics or clever copy. It is about great graphics and clever copy that are driven by your Unique Selling Proposition. Why is it so challenging to create such a marketing campaign? Here are a few reasons from The Marketing Caddy:

Does the USP Still Work?

As a small business, does it make sense to determine one Unique Selling Proposition?

Or...

Have Multiple Selling Propositions?

clipped from www.burkhardagency.com Multiple Selling Propositions may work better for you than USP. In the mid 1950's, Rosser Reeves, then the top account man at Ted Bates, NYC, coined the phrase "Unique Selling Proposition." The idea was that promoting one key feature and benefit of any brand for years and years and years would cut through the clutter of advertising and build an unassailable position in the consumer's mind. Those were the days when major advertisers such as Anacin, Colgate, M&M's, Mobil, and Wonder Bread relied on massive network advertising to carve out unassailable Shares of Market for their products. USP did help Ted Bates hold on to their clients for years and years and years. Today, it's somewhat of a mantra among brand managers. But USP doesn't really make much sense logically or empirically. LOGICAL DEBUNKMENT: If a Unique Selling Proposition works then it must lead to a Unique Buying Reason.

Do You USP?

Without a Unique Selling Proposition, your business is dead in the water in today's competitive business world.

clipped from www.toolkit.com Your Unique Selling Proposition In order to successfully market itself, every business owner needs to focus on what's special and different about his or her business. The best way to do this is to try to express this uniqueness in a single statement. Rosser Reeves was the author of the phrase, "unique selling proposition," or USP, which is a unique message about itself versus the competition that each business or brand should develop and use consistently in its advertising and promotion. By USP we don't necessarily mean a slogan or a phrase that will appear in your advertising, although that's one possible use for it. However, at this point we're focusing on its usefulness as a tool to help you focus on what your business is all about. If you cannot concisely describe the uniqueness of your idea (and create some excitement in potential users), you may not have the basis for a successful business.

4 Steps to Your Unique Selling Proposition

Here's a 4 step approach to determine your USP that's sure to jump start your small business marketing

clipped from www.mindtools.com USP Analysis The Unique Selling Proposition: Crafting Your "Competitive Edge" For years, business trainers have stressed the importance of "USPs" (Unique Selling Propositions). Your USP is the unique thing that you can offer that your competitors can't. It's your "Competitive Edge". It’s the reason that customers buy from you and you alone. However, USPs are often extremely difficult to find. And as soon as one company establishes a successful USP in a market, competitors rush to copy it. This tool helps you find your USP. And it then helps you think about how you’ll defend it. Download our free worksheet to record your analysis, and then follow these four steps: 1. Understand the Characteristics that Customers Value: 2. Rank Yourself and Your Competitors By These Criteria: 3. Identify Where You Rank Well: 4. Preserve Your USP (and Use It!):

Create a Killer USP

The first step in positioning your small business for growth and boost your marketing is to create a Unique Selling Proposition

clipped from www.interactivemarketinginc.com How to Create Your "Unique Selling Proposition" (USP) That Makes Your Marketing Generate More Results Boost Your Sales And Profits By Positioning Your Company As The Best Choice In The Market What makes you more unique, more valuable, and more visible in the market? You've heard the old saying "Differentiate or Die" right? In our highly competitive world, you have to be unique and fill a special niche to be successful in the marketplace. Yet one of the most harmful mistakes small businesses make is not being unique and positioning themselves as the best choice in the market. How do you show that your product or service is the best? Use a Unique Selling Proposition or "USP". Having a USP will dramatically improve the positioning and marketability of your company and products by accomplishing 3 things for you:

Small Business Marketing: Advertising

The next time some ad sales rep, gives you the old "get your name out there" and you gotta build your brand... Remember this reminder from Jonathan Fields in the clipped article below:

99% of your ads are ignored.

Stop wasting money on ads that don't work. Start leveraging your business assets and relationships and build a community of raving fans.

How?

Innovative products and services that zero in on exactly what your clients want.

clipped from jonathanfields.com Why 99.9% of your ads will never be seen 5,000. That’s the number of ads the average citygoer is exposed to on any given day, according to a study by Yankelovich. So, before this day ends, I will have been asked to buy something, in some way shape or form, 5,000 times. And, of those, I’ll buy about five, including food. I don’t have 30% of each day to give up to noticing and refusing ads and offers, so, instead, I learn to do what everyone does… I simply tune them out. Branding, oh please! If it’s really that important to build a big brand, the vast majority of businesses would be far better served turning all their branding energy and expenditures to making their products and services a serious notch more kick-ass and giving their clients a reason to evangelize the hell out of them to everyone they know. Spend your money blowing the minds of a small number of people who are on my brain’s whitelist…

Mixing Money and Social Marketing

Sometimes cold, hard, cash puts a damper on social relationships.

clipped from www.spring.org.uk Social Versus Financial Thinking - When Money Makes People Lazy and Selfish Studies show that people inhabit two separate worlds - the social and the financial - and depending on which one is activated, their thoughts and behaviour can change dramatically. This chasm between our social and financial worlds has been explored in two recent studies that uncover fascinating ways in which money affects our thoughts and behaviour. In the first, participants were subjected to one of social scientists' favourite ruses: the apparently pointless task. They were simply asked to drag a circle across a computer screen as many times as they could in five minutes (Heyman & Ariely, 2004).