Those of us who have been working in marketing for a long time have heard many times about the USP or Unique Selling Proposition. It is a concept that by old (it was defined for the first time in the 40s), it seems that it has fallen into disuse or at least it is not given the importance it should.
But for a long time it has been used is still very useful. I’ll show you why. China Business Email List
What is a USP or Unique Selling Proposition and how to define it?
The Wikipedia defines USP as follows: “It is the unique benefit revealed by a company, service, product or brand that allows it to stand out from the competition. The unique value proposition must be a functionality that highlights the benefits that are significant for the clients “.
To be a unique value proposition you must comply with three rules:
Each advertisement must make a proposal to the client. It should be as clear as saying: “Buy this product for this specific benefit.” It must be focused on a benefit not on a functionality.
This proposal must be one that the competition does not offer or can not offer.
The proposal must be powerful enough to mobilize consumers. To buy the product or service or to perform certain action. And of course, we must be able to fulfill it.
For me the best way to summarize it is:
“The USP or Unique Selling Proposition is the reason why they buy our product before the competition.”My definition does not exactly correspond to the theory, but it does explain the concept clearly.
We need to find and communicate a unique benefit (that our competition does not deliver or can not deliver), in a sufficiently powerful way, as to mobilize our audience towards the purchase.
For this we must have information about:
The business model of our company, as a starting point to understand what single generic or global sales proposal we can offer.
If we want this USP to really mobilize, we must lower the value proposition for our audience and detect those arguments that really add value and that can be converted into USP.
To finally compare our proposals with those of the competition.
Once we have found that unique sales proposal, we must transform it into a message that meets the three conditions stated at the beginning: what is a proposal, what the competition does not do and what is powerful enough to mobilize our audience.
The strength of the Unique Selling Proposition is that we can use it as a basis to define our positioning.
We can define USP in many areas: for our company, its products, for each audience profile, … etc.
To finish I leave you two videos that explain it very well and also put practical examples:
