Dan Kennedy writes about it in his "Ultimate Marketing Plan" book... Jay Abraham in "Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got!"

Marketer after marketer... info guru after info guru!

I've written about it and spoken about it. Heck, you can read what I wrote in my FREE report, “5 Ways to Double or Triple Your Business Profits This Year – Without Spending a Single Dime on Worn Out, Ineffective Advertising and Marketing Techniques!” available at http://www.jpmaroney.com

BTW: That's not a shameless promotion... OK... maybe it is!

What on earth am I talking about?

USP

For most... that's Unique Selling Proposition!

Seems everyone gives the same handful of examples... Dominoes Pizza, Avis (or was it Hertz? )

Toothpaste wars... on and on.

But how does the average Joe Smoe develop this in his business?

Is there a formula? And if so... what's that formula?

I want it aired out once and for all... right here.

Are USPs a bunch of "Info Guru BS" that we all spout? Or is it a real, viable and important component of a solid marketing plan?

Personally I think it is a REAL thing... but getting to the nitty-gritty is MUCH easier said than done.

So...

Step into the water... but come with your floaties... let's get down to the real deal.

What is the step-by-step formula for developing a REAL USP in a REAL business that needs to go out and sell to REAL customers or clients?

Eh? (a little Canadian lingo for ya)

Interesting:
http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/ri...eting-warfare/

i think the problem comes from it being called a proposition ..rather than a guarentee

dominio's"freash hot pizza in thirtyminutes or less or it's free"

and

Fed ex's "when it absolutly positivly has to be there"

those are guarentees

but

Avis' "we're number two, we try harder"

Is pure postitioning ..it works to grab those who had a bad experience with herts and where afraid of just chosing any car rentel place.

your guarentee goes hand and hand with your nieche

Dan keneddey points out not only did Dominos have the usp. it also opened shop as close to colleges as possible.

Whole books are written on this and i am a marketing neophite so .. thats just my take on the usp.

Ken

That's a good one for you. It gets your message across and what you do really quick. Very cool.

Thank you... so is that my USP?


Seriously... back on topic... the USP seems to be the Holy Grail of marketing -- and I'm not sure very many people know step-by-step the formula for developing it.

Thus, this thread!

I thought it was unique selling point or unique sales point.

Oh well...I think it works better with an individual ad as opposed to a company. I think it's the key to niche marketing.

And to start with, I always look for something the competition might be missing.

OK... but I'm gonna dig you a little...

"FORMULA"

take a stab at it!

I used to like Coke, but now I drink 7-USP!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Look... if you're not going to offer anything of value here... the UPS your's!

Here's my stab JP.

It's off the top of me head so less than perfect I'm sure.

To me USP is Unique Selling Proposition meaning you offer/propose something unique.

Now on top of that what you offer should be "wanted" by the target audience.

And that uniqueness is best sold in the context of "A Compelling Story".

Who is your target audience?

What is it that they want that they can't get?

(Sometimes you need to interview to find this out.)

How can you offer it and how can your experience be developed into a story that presents you as THE person, or your product, as THE product to offer it.

How can you "position" yourself or your product to best fill that "want" in a unique way, a way that makes you/your product wanted by the target audience.

Also...

Often there is a product that is selling very well in one field that if positioned to a niche for that niche can become "hot" in the niche.

As an example John Manley just showed me a few real tricks to use with MS Word. I mean it, it's going to cut my typing time in half. Unreal!

Now I'm sure in the techie market the stuff he told me is well known but to us who are always on the computer and can greatly benefit from it, it's not "common" to us so...

Positioned to us for us it would be very unique and could really fly.

He could uniquely position himself as THE guy to best bring these "well positioned" MS Word tricks to the copywriting arena.

Better yet if he developed a story that better sells it.

Hhhmmm... seems like, to me, positioning is key to your USP!

Stab completed!