Every successful business can create a niche for itself, even in a crowded sector. This niche may be due to an entirely new approach to solving a need or a change to an existing solution to a problem. Whatever the case, the business has found a way to distinguish itself from the competition. Without a unique selling point, finding a rhythm for growth and business success is nearly impossible for any business. Your unique selling proposition answers the questions in the mind of customers about, ”why they should stay with your brand” or ”why they should buy from you or use your services.”
According to Payless Promotions, your unique selling proposition may be the distinct characteristic of your products, your irresistible price structure, creative promotional strategy, or display and distribution style. Considering the relevance of identifying and utilizing your business’s unique selling point, you must commit quality time, energy, and resources to this task. Here are some tips that you’ll find helpful for this course.
1. Know Your Customer
According to Fast Simon, an eCommerce optimization platform, ”Knowing your customers; who they are, what they want, and what makes them buy helps you create a personalized, targeted experience.” Beyond knowing your target audience or creating a persona of your ideal customer, you can learn more about your customers through some creative thought processes. To carry this out, you will need to apply some emotional intelligence.
Think about your product or services as though you were a customer and try to seek feedback from your customers. You must be sincere in doing this to enable you to identify the specific emotional need that your products or services meet. Most times, what people remember is how something or someone made them feel and not necessarily what they did for them. Consider if there are patterns in how your customers shop or how they use your product or service. You can also learn a lot from how your customers interact with your brand and spot the things that endear your business to them.
2. Study Your Market
Find out the size and demographics of your market. See if it can be further segmented and in which of the smaller groups you might have a comparative advantage. You should also identify your competitors, including those in your geographical location and global brands. Then, study to see the ”why” that drives their sales and the successes of their marketing campaigns.
Compare your findings with your brand and sales output. Take note of what you can do differently to make your customers choose you over them. Ensure you note characteristics of your products or service delivery that will be difficult for your competitors to replicate. This is definitely a unique selling point that you should amplify to deepen your niche and increase your sales. You can go ahead to formulate clear and concise phrases about this uniqueness you have identified.
3. Itemize Your Strengths
To succeed in your business, you must identify your strengths and showcase them to your target customers. Your strengths may be the location of your business outlets or the fast turnaround time of your services. Or your customers may enjoy free delivery when they purchase online. It could even be that you have an added element in your product design or that you provide your customers with a wide range of options that accommodates various price bands.
We can make an endless list of possible strengths that your business may possess. But this isn’t a one-man show. Consider getting your team members to put heads together and generate ideas of what your unique selling point might be. Expect various kinds of inputs, even some that you may consider ambiguous. Just do well to make notes of the strengths you have identified, as they will play significant roles in your marketing campaign and your creation of a loyalty reward program.
4. Embrace Your Weaknesses
Gaining knowledge of your weaknesses as a business can be turned to your advantage. In the quest to identify your unique selling points, it is vital to know your weaknesses and learn to manage them better. You can again call on your team for their input and try not to be hypercritical.
The key is to create an atmosphere that allows your team members to express themselves freely. If you fail at this task, your competitor can use your weaknesses to demarket you or take up more of the market share. Once you have identified your weaknesses, you can then take steps to make necessary improvements or changes, as the case may be.
5. Figure Out Your Mojo
Our goal from the beginning of this exercise has been to identify your mojo or that magic charm your business possesses that makes your customers choose you over your competitors. That quality, character, or feature is peculiar to your brand. You can put together the information garnered from the previous tasks.
Start with the strengths you noted from your brainstorming sessions with your team. Then rally the observations you made from the research conducted on your business market space and what your customers get from you that isn’t offered by any of your competitors. Also, put together the feedback you got from your customers and the likely emotional needs that your business meets. These are the things that make your customers resolute about choosing your brand – your unique selling point.
6. Embed This Uniqueness Into Your Business Values
Your final and crucial task will be to embed this identified uniqueness into your business value statement. The statement should not be ambiguous or wordy. Instead, work on making clear, brief, and penetrating phrases. At first, you may have more than one phrase from the different things you noted as your uniqueness.
Try to narrow down your business value statement to one concise phrase. This will make it easy for customers to see themselves as part of your business while showcasing your uniqueness – something original, appealing, and straight to the point that creates maximum impact. Now, you can consistently apply this unique selling point in all your branding and marketing programs to achieve resounding success.
