What is a USP?

 

The Unique Selling Position (USP) – How Brand and Benefits Fulfill Customer Needs

 

This is the key marketing program for small advising business to compete with larger firms. Define your market niche, and then use your USP to fulfill needs in that niche.

 

You have gone through special training, maybe even achieved accreditation or certification in a given field. You may even have a Brand. How do you transfer your skills, your education, your training (your benefit package (BP)) to develop a marketing program that communicates how your unique benefits fulfill your target market’s needs? It’s by developing your USP that communicates your benefits. How do you develop an USP? First we have to understand what a need is and how your USP communicates that your BP will fulfill those needs.

 

The “Holy Grail” of marketing is called a need. Needs are internal human drives that force humans to seek specific “things” to reduce the force of the drive. All services and products have elements called benefits that are the key to satisfying needs. Marketing is the science and art of matching benefits to target market needs.

 

The matching of benefits to needs is the primary function of any business. Until recently marketing was often thought of as a division or function within a firm. Many firms are now considered marketing driven firms. The recognized leading scholars in the marketing discipline now consider that the sole reason for the existence of a free market firm or organization is to deliver goods and services whose benefits match the needs of the market place. Understand that this implies that all resources of an organization/firm are committed to this action.    

 

What is a need? Perhaps one of the best needs models is that of Abraham Maslow. Maslow developed a model known as the “hierarchy of needs”. There are many other needs models, but Maslow’s model has stood the test of time in social science literature. It has as its basis five different level of needs.

 

These five levels of needs are: physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. You might find it useful to look up Maslow on the net and become more familiar with this theory if you have not been exposed to it. This is another good model to keep handy and ask yourself “my BP most important benefit satisfies what need level (s)”.

 

 

Marketing has developed significant tools to discriminate product benefits. These are used a predictive models for market acceptance. What does it mean to match a benefit to a need? It means that some form of communication from the organization seeking to deliver a good or service convinces the intended target market that the product/service will indeed satisfy the markets need.

 

Some benefits of particular products are so strongly related to needs that little “marketing” communication is needed. Gasoline for your car. Milk, bread, and toilet paper at the super market. Insulin for diabetics and antivenin for snake bite victims. Some of these items are commodities – meaning that price is often the key selling point. Some are specialty items that are so import that quality is more important than price, but the price/value ratio can also be important in these products.

 

Marketing communications are often highly visible elements in the marketing mix of a firm. Yet there are other marketing elements such as product quality and channels of distribution that can change the markets perception of how well the product’s benefits meets its needs.

 

Your BP is a unique set of benefits. No one else has the same exact BP. The best place to start developing your USP for you BP is your resume. The small business advisory services should be a relationship driven business. The development of customer loyalty should be a target of every small business advisor.

 

Step 1 – Translate You BP into A USP

 

With your resume in front of you, ask yourself – what specific things did I do that I was very good at? Each person is different but here are some examples:

 

• I was very good at evaluating Cost of Goods Sold analysis which translates into pricing model development for small business
• I was very good at evaluating staffing for operations  which translates into reviewing employee expense levels for small businesses
• I was very good at building sales organizations which translates into building a sales model for small business
• I was a CFO which translates into I can build income/expense and balance sheets to help small business owners become professional managers
• I was a successful operations manager which translates into, I can help you build your process so they easily expand when you do (scalability)

 

Each accomplishment on your resume represents an element(s) in your BP that you need to translate in the benefit that fulfills the needs commonly found in small business. That is focus of our USP development package. In a two one hour sessions  we help you determine your BP and then help you create your USP and suggest how to integrate it into your marketing program.

 

From Rolling 10 letters to newsletters to your website, the development of your USP will communicate your brand and how your benefits will fulfill needs for small business. At the same time it will give you focus for you niche markets and raise the productivity of your marketing program.