If You Don't Differentiate, You're Dead!

Finding Your Unique Selling Position (USP) May be The Most Critical Activity for Your Success. Your advertising lives in a world of complexity and confusion. Consumers have so many choices in almost every product classification. When you're shopping for a service or product it's common to have even thousands of choices..

If you doubt me, just jump on the Internet and see how many businesses would love to sell you a pair of shoes or a briefcase or a shirt. My guess is that your alternatives could number in the thousands.

That's a good thing right? Sure . . . if you're the consumer. What about all of us marketing professionals who come to work everyday and try to find better ways of selling? How do we survive in such a world?

Your Advertising Must Set You Apart from Your Competitors. Your advertising must tell your prospect that you're different from the competition. In a meeting with a client the other day, we turned to the yellow pages for their product category and there was a vivid example of how NOT to do advertising.

We found pages and pages of ads--all so much the same that you could literally substitute one company name for another and not have to change the ads at all!

My client was depressed over this, but I was energized! Why? This was a great opportunity for her to differentiate her business. Whoever differentiates wins the battle for business!

When there's no obvious difference, your customers will decide based on who has the best price. When customers are faced with hundreds of choices but dont see any difference between one business and another, what happens? The only thing they can compare is price, so that's how they make their choice. If your differences arent clear, price will be the deciding factor for your customers. That's not the ideal thing for you and your business. And it's not that good for your customer either--especially if the value of your business is best appreciated through a long-term relationship with your customer. Customers who come to you because you have the best price will go to your competitors as soon as they find one with a better price. What if you're the fastest gun in the West? But no matter how fast you are, there will always someone faster. That's not a long-term game. It's better and smarter to differentiate.

If you can differentiate yourself, you can charge higher prices. Companies who can communicate their important differences to their customers can justify charging higher prices. The cheapest product or service does not always win the business. Consider this. No one will buy the cheapest product or service every time. Even if you're a world class tightwad, you can differentiate between bruised and fresh produce. You'll pay a higher price for the non-bruised produce. Certainly!

Aren't your customers just the same? Yes. Obviously, you must be charging a reasonable price, but if you have established an important difference in your business, customers will pay extra to receive that benefit.

So, your key to increased sales, happier customers and increased profits is to simply find the thing which makes you different from your competitors and make certain you're getting that message out in your advertising.

Article Source: http://www.articlesinsight.com

The author, Craig Mecham, is the owner of The Mecham Company The Mecham Company, a marketing consulting firm. With 25 years success in Business to Business Marketing and communications, Mr. Mecham counsels with under performing businesses.

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