Читать книгу Direct Mail in the Digital Age - Lin Grensing-Pophal - Страница 38

Another important consideration in marketing is what is known as a “unique selling proposition” or USP. A USP represents something about your product or service that is different from competing products and services in important ways which represent value for your potential customers. It’s what makes you not only different, but valued. Clarifying your USP can help you establish a strong position in your marketplace and can also serve as the basis for the direct mail messages (words and images) that you will eventually create.

Your USP conveys those qualities that are unique in that they are about what you have to offer; something that none of your competitors have to offer. Selling in that it’s a benefit — something that will appeal to a potential customer. Proposition in that it’s an offer you’re making to people who buy your product. After all, if your product is just like all the rest, why would anybody choose you? There has to be something that sets you apart from the crowd. That something can be as simple as a good location or a low price. Or, it can be as complex as a refined manufacturing technique that allows your product to literally last forever.

What does your company’s product or service offer that nobody else has, or that very few others have to offer? Do you give a full money-back guarantee? Does your product experience extend back many years? Do you offer free maintenance? Do customers receive an add-on gift for making a purchase? Does your product differ in some integral way from your competitors’ products?

In some cases, your USP may be very apparent. In other cases, you may need to spend a great deal of time thinking of a slant that’s effective and appropriate. Maybe, as in the case of Maytag and their “lonely” repair staff, your USP is more a subjective image than a hard fact. The point is that once you’ve developed a USP, you have a hook that can help you grab the customer, but only if you use it effectively in your communication materials.

Your USP allows you to create awareness of your product or service by differentiating it from similar products or services available to your customers. Once you’ve established what your unique selling proposition is, you need to make sure that it plays an integral role in any marketing communication you do.

To identify a USP, you need to consider the following:

• Which product or service benefits are most important to your target market?

• Which benefits do you “own” (i.e., benefits not already claimed by your competitors and not easily imitated by your competitors)?

• Which benefits will be most easily understood by your target audience?

The resulting statement should be a one-line statement that contains a clearly identifiable, unique benefit that is meaningful to your market. Do you remember the following?

• Wonder Bread: “Helps build strong bodies 12 ways.”

• KFC: “It’s finger-lickin’ good.”

• Burger King: “Have it your way.”

Note that in each of these statements it is not the literal translation of the words, but the overall impact of the benefit implied in each statement that makes the USP truly powerful. That is the challenge that marketing communicators should embrace when working toward the development of copy that will achieve results.

Note, also, that each of these statements could have been made by the competition in each product category. The power of an effective USP is that it can create the perception of uniqueness in the mind of consumers.

Once you’ve developed a USP, it should be implicit in all of your direct mail (and other marketing communications) materials.