We’ve all got things we can do better than anyone else, whether it’s in our personal or professional lives – and this is no different for your business. To survive in the long-run, your business needs a unique quality – something you offer that no one else can.
A term you might be familiar with, unique selling proposition (USP), was created by Rosser Reeves in 1961. Rosser Reeves believed that a USP would tell your customer what specific, unique benefit they would get from your product, and it should have the ability to attract millions.
Your business’ unique quality doesn’t have to attract millions of customers to be effective. As long as it’s correctly communicated to your audience, it’ll help you to stand out to attract new customers and keep them loyal.
Identifying your business’ unique quality
Start by identifying your unique quality, so you can let potential customers know why they should use your business vs your competitors.
If you can’t articulate a difference between you and your competitor, why would potential customers choose you?
Take some time with your team to consider these questions to identify what you’re doing better than everyone else in your field:
- What features or benefits do you offer?
- Who is your target audience?
- What do you do for your customer?
- How does your product or service make them feel?
- Why should your customer choose you?
Question it
Don’t forget to question your ideas. It’s important to make sure your unique quality is sustainable and robust as your business grows.
You should avoid relying solely on cost, although low costs may attract customers, this isn’t specific to you and your business, and PR trends show that modern customers are looking for more from businesses.
Consider if you can sustain impressive customer service if your customers grow beyond your current capacity, and what would happen if your competitor started offering the same benefit you do?
What seems a unique quality right now might not be in the long term, so make sure you’ve thought about this before you commit to communicating to your customers why they should choose you over another.
Communicating your unique quality
Once you know what your unique quality is, and you’ve questioned it to make sure it can stand the test of time, you need to communicate it with your customers.
It’s no use having the best product if you’re not communicating this with your target audience. You need to make sure that every piece of content you’re putting out tells your audience why they should use your product or service. It’s not about being ‘salesy’ it’s about emphasising the message behind the product or service, and the difference it makes to your customer (ie what problem are you solving).
Your unique quality should be the secret ingredient to inform your communications plan, which in turn should be a part of all of your owned, earned and paid media. To make the most of your social media and website, it’s important that you what you do better than anyone else is clear, to turn your audience into customers.
In the current business market, you need to make sure your business’ communications stand out from the crowd.
Wondering if your unique quality is coming across in your communications? Click for your free 30-minute communications review:
