My marketing mentor, Dan Kennedy, defines a USP as:

“Why should I, your prospect, do business with you verses any and every other option available to me in your category?”

So how do you answer that question?  Here are a couple ideas.  First, you can have an advantage in price.  Personally, I think this is the last place you want to be.  Frankly, the track record of the “low cost leader” in just about every category lasts only so long.  There’s always somebody out there will to do something cheaper than you are.

But, there are plenty of other ways to go.  For example, you may have a product that is unique only to you, and that doesn’t necessarily have to be the next wiz-bang, cutting edge toy.  It can be something as simple as the way you package your product that your competition doesn’t do, or refuses to do.

You have a process that’s different that everybody else.  Ivory soap used the USP, “99.78% Pure” for decades, so everybody assumed they had the purest soap.  We’ve come to realize over the years that most soap are 99.78% pure.  But they brought the process of creating the soap and used it as a USP. 

Third, do you provide a service or a level of service that no one else is providing.  I know of many doctors who have practices that have limo service pick up, grand piano players in the “waiting room” (a barely dare call them that), dentists who have private patience rooms.  They have a level of service the average doctor doesn’t meet.

I have some more ways to help you answer the USP question.  I’ll be back on Friday for more examples.