After marketing your business to someone, if she asks you why she should go with your business (and not your competitors’), what would you say? If you have not written a Unique Selling Point (USP) for your business, you might be stuck, not knowing what to say. You might as well say any random thing that comes to your mind.
Whether you are stuck or said any random thing, you would not be able to convince the prospect. This is why it is important you know how to write a Unique Selling Point for your business. USP helps you answer the question “why should I go with your business?” regularly asked by prospective clients.
What Is a Unique Selling Point (USP)
For the sake of clarity and for definition, a unique selling point (USP) is defined as a simple statement that summarises the value and uniqueness of a business (or a product). It is the promise (or pledges) that a business makes to its clients.
By decoding the statement, the target audience finds out how the business is different from its competitors’ and why the business is the best to deliver a product or service to them. Unique Selling Point (USP) is the backbone of every marketing campaign; here is how to write one for your business.
How to Write a Unique Selling Point for Your Business
- Define Your Ideal Customer/Client
When planning to write a Unique Selling Point for your business or product, the first to think about is the ideal customer or client. You need to define her to the specific. Doing so would help form her image in your memory and have an insight into her behaviours.
For example, if you were a fashion designer that runs an outlet that designed luxurious bespoke outfits for ladies, your ideal clients would not just be any ladies that love bespoke outfits. You would be thinking of fashionable, high-class ladies that love it bespoke.
- Think of the Problem Faced By Your Ideal Customer/Client
In this step, you would need to get into the head of your ideal customer – or walk in her shoes. You will need to think about the needs and the challenges facing the client. You also need to think of what motivates the ideal client.
In the fashion designer example above, the problem these fashionable, high-class ladies might be facing in getting bespoke outfits could be finding skilled designers in their neighbourhood. At the same time, their current designers might not be meeting deadlines for sewing their outfits.
- Research How Your Competitors are Solving the Problem
Here you would find out what your competitors are doing regarding how they work and how they manage their customers. This research would make you understand your competitors’ strong and weak points, and how you can capitalise on it in writing your business’s Unique Selling Point.
For example, in our fashion designing business, the owner will find out who are the top competitors in the bespoke fashion-designing industry, and what the competitors are doing. The owners would want to see some of the already sewed outfits of the competitors – and possibly speak to few customers of the competitors, to get the idea of customers satisfaction.
- Think of How Your Solution Is Different (and Better) Than Competitors’
From the knowledge of what your competitors are doing, you will know their weak points. If your business does better at their weak points or has a specialised way of providing the solutions, then you can work your Unique Selling Point around their weakness and your uniqueness.
Thinking of the weakness of competitors and the uniqueness of the business, a draft Unique Selling Point statement of the example fashion designing business can be: “Bespoke Elegant Outfits Delivered to Your Doorstep in 2 Days.”
- Reword and Review the Statement Until It Is Short and Catchy
In writing the Unique Selling Point for your business, your first draft may be (or may not be) your final draft. If your first draft is short and catchy, you can accept it as your USP. However, if the drafted statement is long, you might need to reword and shorten it.
When you have a short statement of the Unique Selling Point, you can now take a break for some days to think over it and see if you would get a new idea of improving the write-up.
Above all, don’t forget that a USP is a promise you make to people about your business (or product). So when you write a Unique Selling Point, make sure the statement contains a promise you can fulfil.
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