Unique Selling Proposition – How To Create Your Own USP

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is vital to your success in the realm of online and network marketing.  While competition will always be with you no matter what business you’re in, competition in the online arena is particularly plentiful.  The bad news is that there are literally thousands of online and network marketers vying for a piece of the internet / network marketing pie.  The good news is that most of them have no idea how to effectively market themselves!  They get a corporate replicated web page and promptly begin spamming their family, coworkers and friends (both real and virtual)  This is NOT marketing.  It’s sales and prospecting and people who engage in that kind of activity are perceived as salesman and who wants to hang around a salesman?

In order to separate yourself from the thousands of rookies online these days, it’s important to brand yourself as a leader and a knowledgeable marketer.  One of the ingredients of that formula is your USP.  We’ll go with a little history and a comprehensive definition to start then we’ll go through the steps you need to develop your own.

What Is Your Unique Selling Proposition?

According to Wikipedia:

The Unique Selling Proposition (also Unique Selling Point) is a marketing concept that was first proposed as a theory to explain a pattern among successful advertising campaigns of the early 1940s. It states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and that this convinced them to switch brands. The term was invented by Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Company. Today the term is used in other fields or just casually to refer to any aspect of an object that differentiates it from similar objects.

Today, a number of businesses and corporations currently use USPs as a basis for their marketing campaigns.

In Reality in Advertising (Reeves 1961, pp. 46–48) Reeves laments that the U.S.P. is widely misunderstood and gives a precise definition in three parts:

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”
2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique—either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.
3. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

In the simplest of terms:

Your USP is all about what ONLY YOU can bring to the marketplace.

Here’s some examples to start your thinking.

• Domino’s Pizza – We’ll Deliver A Fresh, Hot Pizza To Your Door Within 30 Minutes Or It’s Free.
• General Motors – We’re The Only Auto Manufacturer That Offers A 50,000-mile, 5 Year Warranty On The Entire Power Train. (was the only one at the time)
• We’re The Only Music Studio In Town Who Offers The Suzuki Method Of Violin Instruction.
• I’m the Only Realtor In Town Who Can Sell Your House In 90 Days Or I’ll Buy It Myself!
• We’ll Match ANY Advertised Price For Your Mattress Or It’s FREE! (not logical, but effective! )
• Corns Gone in 5 Days Or Your Money Back.
• I’ll Paint Any Car Any Color for $129.95.
• I’m The Only Network Marketer Who Will Work With You EVERY DAY Until You Reach $1000/Month in Income.

Well, I think you get the idea.

How To Determine Your USP

You are unique.  You are one of a kind.  Decide what you can do, are willing to do, or what you can guarantee that nobody else is willing to do or guarantee.

Take a minute to list the 3 most important benefits of you or your product. Don’t skip over this step.  Write them down.  Make a list of at least three.

Now list in order: Your Product, Your Offer, and Your Guarantee.  Let’s say you’re a batting coach.  Here you go:

Product: A unique bat swing that lets you hit like a pro.
Offer:  You can learn this simple technique using our exclusive 30 minute video.
Guarantee: If you don’t double your hitting power after watching the video just once, we’ll refund your money.

What if you can’t really guarantee anything?  If you can’t guarantee X, what can you guarantee.  If you can’t guarantee your product, then guarantee the service or guarantee the price or the time frame.  Make a definitive statement as to what you can bring to your customer that nobody else can or is willing to bring.  It might not be possible to know for sure if you’re the only one offering this Unique Selling Proposition, but you can be sure that you are one of an elite few that are.  This will separate you from 90% of the rest of your competitors.  Go the extra mile and dare to deviate!

VERY IMPORTANT STEP. Next decide the “Pain Point” of the consumer or the “Performance Gap” where your customer is getting let down or not serviced properly.  Dominos Pizza identified the Pain Point where mom and dad are just home from work, the kids are starving and they don’t want to wait an hour and mom and dad are too tired to cook.  They want pizza NOW.  Dominos Delivered!

What are the most frustrating parts of your customer’s experience in your industry.  Where to your competitors let them down and how can you fill that Performance Gap?  Answer that and you have nearly completed your USP.

Final Step:  Write down your Product, Offer and Guarantee that solved the a well-identified Pain Point or Performance Gap into a short (as possible) and concise statement.  Make it unique, memorable and powerful.  Be bold and be careful that you can deliver at the same time.

What To Do With Your Unique Selling Proposition Once You Have One.

OK… Now you’ve developed and hammered out your USP.  What do you do with it?  It becomes your signature, your trademark, your jingle, your specific and unique characteristic that labels everything you do.  You should put it on your blog, your letterhead, your business card, on your capture pages, on your links and your advertising.

Simply stated, your USP becomes part of everything you do, say, write, advertise and market!  It becomes you.  Just think how well you know these USP’s.  “Like a Good Neighbor”, “Pizza in 10 Minutes Or Less or It’s Free”, “Just Do It”, “Stanley: We Want To Help You Do Things Right”, or “When It Absolutely, Positively Has To Be There Overnight.”  These are all some form of USP.  Some state the service or guarantee, others simply state the mindset or position in the marketplace.

Find your simple and powerful USP and promote it with everything you do.

Finally, Make Sure You Deliver on Your USP !

The last thing in the world that you want to do is to fail or under deliver on your USP.  The power of your USP is your ability to deliver on your promises.  A powerful USP that you can deliver to your client or customer will make you wildly successful.  It can also make you a failure overnight if you don’t deliver.  I’m sure FedEx struggled, planned and burned the midnight oil to figure out how to absolutely, positively get it there overnight, but they did and it made them practically an overnight sensation. (pun intended! )

Have fun with your USP and get it going today!

Dennis Volz is the owner of The Red Hot Millionaire Marketing Alliance and the author for The MLM Resource Center .com.
www.TheMLMResourceCenter.com
www.MLM-Toolkit.com

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