The marketing campaigns that you will not remember are the ones that did not define the Unique Selling Point clearly in the initial marketing strategy. So here are a few steps that will help you define your USP and make the most of them.

Who are your audience?

It is not longer about shouting as loud as possible in the hope that of the thousand people that hear you one of them might be interested in your product. This is a very ineffective, costly, old fashioned way of marketing your business or product. The work needs to be put in to clearly identify your audience, where do they socialise, where do they read, where do they work, where do the play? Once you can identify where these people are you do not shout at them – you talk to them and you try to make sure that the problems they will have are something that you can solve. Its much easier to sell someone a tyre if they have a puncture!

How do you solve problems of your target audience?

Your desired audience are mostly likely looking for problem solvers. Think about it, almost everything you decide to purchase in life solves a problem. For example a quicker new computer to make you more productive or that your old one is broken, a new piece of software to give you more business opportunity because you feel you need to be more pro-active, a training course because you feel you need more knowledge in your business or personal life. Luxury goods can also fall into this category as some people feel their problem is that they do not shine around their competitors either in business or personal life. Businesses like to work with other successful businesses because it tells them that their supplier must be good at what they do so you would rather use a financial advisor that drives around in a Bentley rather than a Ford Kia.

So you must clearly identify the problems that you solve. The chances are you will have competitors that say they solve the same problems as you and sell a similar if not better product than you so how can you overtake them to the purchasing trigger?

What makes you different to your competitors?

Do not make claims in business that you cannot back up with hard evidence. Do not say you are the biggest if you are not, do not say you are the cheapest if you are not, do not say you are the market leaders if you are not. These are weak messages that are put in front of us all every day and most of the time you will totally ignore them. Large supermarkets for example are backing the the fact that they are the cheapest by publishing factual evidence of their competitors prices compared to them and listing the saving. Very confident, factual, strong marketing which makes people listen. If they just said “we are the cheapest” without backing it up, we would all ignore it.

So sit down and list what really makes you different, it does not matter how small that difference is and if you are lucky you will have more than one but you must honestly identify these differences. In our experience this can be a very sobering exercise because if you do not have a USP then life will be very tough, so if you haven’t got one, make a desired one a reality for your future success.

Take what you now have and bring it to life.

Once you have gone through steps 1 to 3 you need to bring it to life in the form of a powerful paragraph. What always happens is that you will bring the facts together from these points write it down and read it and think “my god, that is us!” and you will probably have one of the strongest messages you have ever had as a company. Your first stab at this paragraph will probably not be right so refine it, refine it and refine it again until it feels right for you and more importantly your market audience.

These are just an outline of the basics to identify or create your own USP. Once you have it you will have your own holy grail to your marketing message. Use it wisely!