Components Of A Unique Selling Point (USP)

Anything brought to market, be that a product, service, or even idea, needs to offer something novel, and if not novel, something capable. After all, if you offer a product identical in quality and scope to your competitors, the odds are that your potential customers have no incentive to try yours out, especially because you’re an unproven entity.

Take Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The latter is by far the most recognized brand worldwide and the advertising victor out of these two companies. However, Pepsi has many favorable deals in place to supply restaurants and chain companies such as cinemas, while also offering domestic versions of their product, meaning that they fill a certain niche, and their similar taste still has versatile use, and most importantly, demand.

As you can see, unique selling points (USPs) can be hard to define. Sometimes, it’s not just how you structure your product, but how that product is delivered, and also how it operates in relation to similar provisions on the market which will count. Of course, if you’re not too careful you can theory-craft your product/service and its potential uses into oblivion, which is why it’s crucial to remain objective.

In this post, we’ll try and help you get there.

User Experience, Compatibility, Utility

Unique value is not always delivered by the true innovation of a product, but sometimes, how easy that product is to use, and how well it slots into the lifestyle of your customers. For example, there are technically better, more customizable, and even consumer-focused smartphones out there compared to the iPhone and its library of adjacent products. Some of them may offer more value. 

Arguably, none of them centralize all of the modern standards of what a smartphone should and could be like Apple’s ecosystem. Buy into it, and everything will be given to you, from iCloud to the app economy to the music store and podcast access. User experience (UX) is an essential discipline, as is compatibility with the lifestyles of your targeted audience. This is why researching who to service is as important as the service itself. After a time, your brand identity becomes part of the USP itself, as it has with Apple.

Value Proposition

If your value proposition outweighs another brand, your product or service might not have to supersede what they have to offer in terms of features and benefits, because you’ll have found a place in the market for your goods. 

To continue the tech example, Google Chromebooks are much cheaper notebooks (or laptops) than more conventional component-based laptops or brand-dedicated designs like Macbooks, but because they’re solely designed to run the programs available on Google’s Play Store and use the web as an integral service platform, the value is absolutely there. For this reason, a simplified, quite unimposing product can be a no-brainer for customers hoping for a cheaper alternative. 

Your own brand may look to that approach, also. For example, this could work if you’re a new urban planning consulting brand on the scene, but you have experience in building stadiums and rectifying older city planning project mistakes. Pedigree and niche may work in your favor, and help you compete.

Emotional Appeal

This sounds like an entirely unproven theory, but you would be amazed at how often market researchers identify brand familiarity, convenience, and comfort through quantified emotional relevance. Think of Disney, a brand known to have a place in many people’s childhoods, something they absolutely capitalize on. Their robust army of lawyers is high-skilled at combatting anything that contravenes the sanctity of that brand image, and for understandable reasons. 

It may be worth considering how your service or brand cultivates emotional appeal. A good example of this could be local driving instructors who take pictures of their recently licensed students for their social media page. It’s a small post but provides a world of celebration, and can entice people to use your brand over others. Never discount emotional impact in your marketing or client retention, it’s a vital tool to use.