If you watch any business pitch, you will often hear the investors asking questions like ‘How are you different?’ ‘What is your USP?’ For a business to thrive and have long term sustainability, it is essential to distinguish yourself, brand, and products from those of your competitors. Your customers need to be able to tell the difference between your brand and that of your competition and make a clear choice.
This whole concept of differentiating your business and value proposition is known as Unique Selling Proposition’ (USP).
What Is An Unique Selling Proposition?
According to Wikipedia, a unique selling proposition refers to the unique benefit of a company, brand, or product. A USP may be the intangible part of your brand or your company’s services. It could also be tangible and attributable to a unique feature or advantage your product has over the competition.
What are the Properties of a good USP?
- A USP must be unique to your business
- It must be relevant to your target audience and excite them
How do you Formulate your USP?
- Identify the core of your business/product offerings
- Define your client segment/target audience
- Identify how your service/product or brand solves a problem for your target audience
- Determine what differentiates the way you address the clients’ issues from how your competition does
- Bring all the steps above together to create your brand promise and USP
It is not enough to create a USP as a business, what is more, important is to communicate the USP all along your customer touchpoints and to ensure it stays relevant to your target audience.
In case you are still wondering why you should have a good USP and communicate it effectively, the competitive landscape has dramatically changed, and the power is tilted to the consumer. Hence, it would be best if you consistently answered the question ‘why should I choose your brand’ for your customers or target audience.
Finally, as a business, it is essential to continuously evaluate the needs of your target audience, and the relevance of your USP to these needs as this will serve as your competitive edge.