Identifying and creating Unique Selling Points (USPs) is covered in detail in the article Unique Selling Points. But there’s nothing like focusing the mind to really help you identify it.
A great way to do this is to think about what you would say in a very short sales pitch. This is sometimes called an ‘elevator pitch’, from the concept of explaining an idea in the time it takes to share a lift journey with someone, such as a financier. You wouldn’t have time to explain all the finer points of your product or service, you have to be brief and focus on the benefits.
There are some scenarios below to consider that will make you focus on how to put across your elevator pitch briefly and concisely. You won’t have time to put across any fluff, just your USP, so you have to really think through what the key points of it are. In other words, why would someone want to buy from your micro-business, rather than someone else?
The scenarios are:
- Networking meetings where you have 60 seconds to state what your business is, what it does, why someone would buy and a description of your key target customers. Networking meetings are covered in more detail in the article Would Networking Suit Your Micro-business?
- Pay-per-click adverts on Google Adwords where you have around 170 characters plus a brief title to grab someone’s attention amongst lots of competing adverts. Can you do one for the micro-business as a whole and then one for each product or service without saying professional, friendly, low price or great service?
- A Twitter post where you have only 140 characters.
- A Pinterest page where you have to illustrate your business visually with little or no text.
- A 6 second video to display on platforms such as Twitter.
The main benefit of doing this exercise is the focus it gives you on what really matters, i.e. your benefits or Unique Selling Points and an understanding of who you are trying to sell to. You can then apply the outputs of that focus to the rest of your marketing activities.