That is where marketers find themselves. You can meet the prospect and explain your services to them and how you offer high-quality products, but in the end, you lose the prospect to a competitor. Why? You failed to prove that you are the provider of the ideal solution they need.

Unique Selling Proposition [source]

Why Competitive Advantage Works

As you must be aware, many businesses are more generic in their offerings. You can only come across a few business setups that are unique in serving their clients and meeting their needs. It is, therefore, clear that the many competitors out there are not really competing with you because they do not meet customer expectations.

Presenting your competitive advantage to your prospects gives them a good reason to trust you and do business with you. Being in the position to solve their problems counts a lot in business marketing. This is what your prospects have wanted all the time, and that is why some businesses pick faster than others.

When you set up your marketing campaigns, tell your prospects what they get when they buy from you. In your descriptions, this should be the benefit they get, not just your discounts or shiny items. Writing a powerful copy is essential in driving your prospects to your product. But now let us learn how the whole process goes.

How to Identify and Define Your Unique Selling Point

Your company’s competitive advantage should stand out and define the authority of your business in the industry. It is necessary for you to know what you are offering before you place it before your audience. And you must avoid all forms of ambiguity. Your selling point should be specific in your offering.

Identifying a competitive advantage in your business is the first step you need in your marketing strategy. You can also design your products to create the USPs you need for the growth of your business. This process requires attention so that you are sure to do the right thing and avoid reproducing what is already in the market.

Here are the steps you will have to take to create a USP for your business.

1. List Down Your Product Features and Benefits

Whatever the product you are selling, you should first get the list of features it has. Then get an understanding of what benefits your product has to offer to your customers. Do not just sell anything because people are selling the same type of product. Aim at creating uniqueness in the product benefits.

If you have any features that lack real quality, you may be selling the wrong products, or you could be spending more on developing products without a competitive advantage. Your aim should be to improve your products. Never think that lowering the price will help you sell more. You can identify what makes you stand out by comparing your products (in terms of benefits) with those of direct competitors in the market.

2. Identify the Specific Pain Point Your Prospects Have

When creating your products, focus on revolving around consumer pain points. You also need the determination to provide solutions for their specific needs. You can learn more about what your prospects need with a simple Google search. Type your main keywords and Google will present suggested searches.

If your target customers have a problem accessing specific information, you can create a video learning course to provide them with the content they need. Short videos that point out specific aspects convert better than narratives.

3. Determine the Areas at which You Beat Your Competitors

Your competitive advantage explains what you have that all other business competitors lack. The services or products you offer need to be absolutely unique. If you can use various approaches to meet your customer needs, you can easily beat the competition. Ensure that whatever you are offering cannot be imitated by your competitor.

You also need to check if there is anything to scale up. If, for example, you are offering an eCommerce solution for businesses, ensure that your customers get more value when you compare with other businesses. For instance, integrate Bitcoin payments on the platform so that buyers can pay from any part of the world hassle-free.

Looking at your competitors’ businesses can also give you an idea of what you can do to get more attention. Go through their product and service description pages and note if there is anything they could improve. Work on that improvement on your own products. It pays to be in the shoes of your prospects when identifying your USP.

Going online and reading reviews is another wonderful way to identify your competitors’ weaknesses. Collect a list of your competitors in your local area. If your business is global, take a list of the top brands.

Search for reviews and read real customer experiences to see if anything can change for the better. It is worth noting that 84% of consumers rely on reviews to make a decision. Whatever the cause of negative reviews on your competitor should not appear on your business.

Take a look, for example, at Sotrender’s profile and reviews on Capterra

4. Provide Answers to Customer Questions

Before you present your product to your prospect, identify how it answers their questions. Let them know what they will get from your products before they make decisions. This information is vital when creating your unique selling point marketing campaign.

If you are selling computer software for a specific task, your customer will need to understand if it is available for their platform. List down what answers your product provides so that you can easily create the campaigns.

Where Competitive Advantage Works

Unique selling points are essential when you are pushing your products in the eye of your prospects for the first time. It is also necessary to highlight them if you are updating your services. It is a way of providing a solution to what your prospects have been searching for a long time.

So, the best time to create a USP is when prospects have no idea what to settle for and why they need the products. From the identification process, you can now build some words to describe your business in a positive manner to create an impact when your prospects read your campaigns.

Communicating Your Competitive Advantage to Your Prospects

It is good that now you have created a unique product. But then, how do you bring it to your audience so that they know it and buy from you? Here are the things you need to do.

1. Identify Your Ideal Customers

You already know your audience from the first step when you started designing your products. But who is your real customer? We can say that social media is good for business marketing, but that alone does not define who needs the service. But somebody who wants to know how to get Instagram followers is identifiable.

source

Understanding specific customer needs will help you get the right prospects for your USP. You will also want to know more details about them. Where your customers come from and the devices they use is necessary when identifying who your competitive advantage suits.

2. Focus on Prospect Interests

Before you push your products, put yourself in the customers’ shoes.

• Do you remember that you had to answer prospect questions when designing the product USP?
• If this product appeared to you, would you buy it?
• Why would it be a good choice?

These questions are essential and you need to answer them.

Let your consumer clearly know what to get from your product, and not what you are offering. For instance, “Our backup software keeps your data safe even when you switch devices.” You can use that as a USP instead of, “We give you 5GB free storage per month.”

3. Communicate Your Competitive Advantage Positively

You already know who needs your services and what you have to offer them and satisfy their needs. It is now time to put down the information in front of them. Choosing your words will play the main role in this step. Some words can either only waste your space and time or ruin your reputation.

You can say, “PRODUCT_NAME securely encrypts your data on Android, Windows, and Mac.” The sentence is specific on what it does – securing data by encryption. It also identifies the platforms it works on. You will not make a mistake of marketing the product to other OS users – except you create an update to support all platforms.

It is crucial to avoid words that are vague. Best, top, first, big, fast, etc. are unnecessary. If your products do not meet the prospect’s expectations at the moment, it is useless telling them that it is the best seller.

You also need to avoid mentioning (negatively) your competitors in the USP campaign. There is no need for saying, “PRODUCT_NAME runs faster than Company A’s” since you will only draw a bad picture. On top of that, the statement serves no purpose whatsoever.

Conclusion

Competitive advantage helps you to gain more conversions, but the way you communicate it to your prospects can either build or ruin your business. Staying focused on your business model and your consumer needs will help you to overcome the USP communication challenges.