Without a U.S.P. You're Dead....
By: John Skorczewski
Hello,
Welcome to October! Summer is finally gone and Fall is upon us....for the last 2 months I've been making fun of
the Halloween store that opened down the street (a whole store opened for just one "holiday"? That won't work!) but
now that Halloween is almost here that store is packed....Yeah, I'm a little dense at times...
In Last Week's Issue I gave you
a little tip on how to increase your internet s'ales by using customer testimonials. This week I want to talk to you about
something that's just about the most important thing you need to worry about with your business, online or off.
I see it every day...my consulting clients ask me to look at their web site and tell them what I think.
I look...and I look...and I can't really tell what the point of the site is. Sure it looks good...nice graphics...nice copy...
whatever they're selling is displayed to good effect...but something is missing....something....important.
That something is called the U.S.P. which is short for Unique Selling Proposition.... marketers all around the
globe call this by slightly different names...but the point is, a U.S.P. is that ONE thing that makes you different
than everybody else.
It doesn't really matter what you're selling, you need to come up with a U.S.P. and use that U.S.P. as the
focus of all your efforts...make your web site about it, use it in ALL of your advertising, print it on your business
cards, etc. etc. etc.
So what exactly IS a U.S.P.? Think of it as a benefit...the MAIN benefit that your product or service will give
to a customer. But go beyond that....think of it as the main benefit that your product or service will provide, that
no other company can provide.
There may be a hundred people selling the same item...but you might give 24 hour free tech support when no
one else does....so maybe your free tech support is your U.S.P.
Maybe everyone else's reduces acne in 72 hours but yours reduces acne in 36 hours...THAT would be your
U.S.P.
I don't know what you sell so I can't say for sure...but whatever you sell, be it product or service, you MUST
MUST MUST figure out what your U.S.P. is.
Once you do, everything else falls into place. You know what to write about on your web site...what to focus
your copy on...what to talk about in your advertising...how to open a conversation with a customer at
a trade show...everything and anything becomes clearer once you define your U.S.P.
So here are some boilerplate U.S.P.'s to give you some examples of how to start...
1. Free Tech Support
2. Money Back Guarantee
3. Year Long Money Back Guarantee
4. Speed
5. Ease of Use
6. Free shipping
These are just a few very basic ideas...let's imagine you own an online store that sells bath candles.
What makes your store any different from one of the thousands of others out there, or even the
big retail chains? If you don't figure out what sets your site apart...you'll never make a penny in
this racket.
It might be that you bunch your candles in groups based on special occasions and the bundles
are cheaper than if you were to buy them separately.
It might be that you offer a free aroma therapy music CD with all purchases....
It might be that you offer a candle of the month club of exotic candles...
Hopefully you start to get the idea...you ABSOLUTELY must have some hook...some UNIQUE
thing that sets you apart....define that "thing", figure out that hook...and you're set.
Take our Submission-Spider Search Engine Submission
Software for instance. There are a ton of companies selling software very similar to this. But
what has made ours so popular is that we offer totally free 24/7 tech support that is there for the sole
purpose to help our customers get more traffic to their web site.
It's really hard to get a site listed in the top ten at the search engines on your own...even using software
like ours or our competitors. So we offer highly trained and highly skilled SEO experts to all our
customers completely free 24/7 to answer questions, make suggestions, or outright take over to
make sure your site gets listed in the top ten. That's our U.S.P. and that's allowed us to blow
people away.
So what's your Unique Selling Proposition?
That's all for this week. See you next Monday!
John Skorczewski
(pronounced Score-Chess-Key)
Editor, WebPromotion-Weekly
http://www.WebPromotion-Weekly.com
Want to use this article in your own ezine or web site? You can...as long as you add this signature line
(including the links):
John Skorczewski is the publisher of WebPromotion-Weekly, a free ezine about Internet Marketing,
Promotion, Advertising, And Search Engine Submission as well as the creator of the popular Web Site Promotion software,
the Submission-Spider
