Your unique selling proposition: What do you do best?

Before your business embarks on a marketing plan, you need to zero in on its unique selling proposition — the factor that helps it stand out from most of its competition.

Taking time to identify exactly how you want to be different (and what you wish to be known for) allows you to structure your sales strategy around your key advantages, ensuring your customers clearly understand why they should choose your products or services over others. The alternative — trying to be all things to all customers — is seldom effective. As Joe Putnam puts it on NeilPatel.com, “When you attempt to be known for everything, you don’t become known for anything.”

Whether your business is new or it simply needs more direction when it comes to sales and marketing, consider the following suggestions for honing in on your unique selling proposition.

• Gather as much data as possible about your current customers, learning about key demographics, buying habits and preferences to help set a direction for your strategies.

• Evaluate where your business fits into the overall market. What is its niche now? Is there a gap in the market you should be exploiting more thoroughly? Weed out audiences and market segments that will likely never apply to your offerings, and zero in on what you can do well — and do profitably.

• When considering your best assets, think about multiple aspects of your offerings. Do people come to you for pricing, product quality, product selection, speed of service, quality of service, friendliness, fun, comfort, trustworthiness, convenience, longevity, reputation, credibility, level of expertise, technical acumen or exclusivity? Do you offer the best guarantees in the business? Is there an element of nostalgia or tradition to your company? In short, why do clients seek you out now, and for what do you wish to be known in the future?

• Use your proposition to inform ad and marketing campaigns, aiming to reinforce your “claim to fame” in the eyes of your customers. “Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer — not just words, product puffery or show-window advertising,” advises Rosser Reeves in his book “Reality in Advertising”. “Each advertisement must say to each reader: ‘Buy this product, for this specific benefit.’”

Finally, understand that the unique selling proposition you form now need not be permanent. It may well change if your business takes a new direction and adds new and unique offerings.

Talk to Custom Toll Free about optimizing your unique selling proposition through use of an effective vanity phone number and inbound marketing campaign