Subject: USP,PA,CA,USA, It's too much to keep up with! Author: SidK Date Originally Posted: 10:15:27 05/23/01 Wed (in a previous blog)
I've heard an read about unique selling propositions, pre-emptive advantages, competitive advantages, unique selling advantages, positioning and others. Are they the same or different?
NOTE: As I reviewed my message recently, I noticed some mistakes. I also added an update below.
Corrected Post:
Hi Sid:
Some people treat them as the same. They're similar. The biggest word for each of them is UNIQUE! If your business is like any others, there's no real reason for customers to buy from you (unless they can get to your business more easily).
If you offer exactly the same products & services as competitors, people could choose you at random & get the same benefits. If that's the case, you're relying on the chance of being chosen. I'd prefer to sell by design, not by chance.
There's definite overlap among these terms.
Here's how I define them -
Unique selling proposition: What are you offering that your competitors aren't offering? Maybe they're able to, but so far they haven't. For example - Bayer aspirin focuses on relieving pain but even more, taking aspirin can help to prevent heart-attacks. Any aspirin product can do these.
Preventing heart-attacks is something Tylenol (non-aspirin pain reliever) can't do, so compared to acetaminophen, aspirin has a unique selling proposition.
Unique buying advantage: What advantage do customers think they get by buying from you instead of from your competitors. (This can be used as a basis of referral marketing.) It's something customers already believe about your business, product/service without much if any prompting from you. For example - Tums has calcium, but Rolaids doesn't. (Doctors helped this a lot.)
Unique selling advantage: What do you want prospects to accept as a clear advantage. For example - "When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. Fed Ex." It was unique until the US Postal Service and UPS matched it.
Pre-emptive advantage: In a highly competitive/commodity environment, one competitor finds something about itself the others haven't figured out yet. The others could also claim it if they realized it. Avis car rental used to boast its service lines were shorter than Hertz's. National and Budget car rentals could have claimed the same thing and still could if they wanted to seem like copy-cats.
Competitive advantage: Wal-Mart stores are typically set up near the edges of cities so they'll be close to major highways, so the trucks can get to the stores easily. In some cities, this is a low population area. Since Wal-Mart put a lot of money into its locations, it probably won't move a store (it has in some cases). So, W-M can't do much about its stores' distances from customers' homes.
Positioning: This is the picking order in a business category. Somebody wants to deal with the top company in a category, s/he will probably pick the number two company if the number one company is unavailable.
"Avis is number two, why pick us? We try harder." If people didn't want to wait in a long line for a Hertz car, they may just go for the number two company. The "We try harder" part is just a nice little touch, but it's the number two positioning that made it successful for Avis until it changed its focus and lost momentum.
Trying harder isn't enough to win a marketing battle. The road to hell is being paved with good intentions & the people who try harder are doing the paving. Trying harder is OK if the effort creates enough of the value people will pay for.
Branding: The biggest effort in marketing is to get people to think of brand name when a business, product or service category comes to mind. Which brand comes to mind when you think about computers? That's branding.
Inherent Drama: This is another element we could add, which I reduce down to ID, because if you have an inherent drama in your business, product/service it should be used as a form of identity.
This conversation was used in a commercial decades ago:
Girl 1: "Here he comes. Give me another Certs, mine is gone."
Girl 2: "Do this. (slurping/sucking sound) Do you feel that cool, fresh feeling?"
Girl 1: "Yeah."
Girl 2: "That means Certs is still working."
Then Girl 1 is confident the boy of her dreams won't be offended by bad breath. Certs had, maybe still has, the inherent drama (ID) of lasting breath freshness.
I like to include ways to apply information I provide, but these subjects have so many variables, it would take a lot of space to provide practical applications of these other than the examples I gave.
Thank you for using my blog.
Please let me know if you need any clarifications.
Copyright 2017 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
thrivingbusiness@email.com
No competitor is invincible. You don't need
a miracle. Your business will THRIVE if you
have the right marketing.
Please click here for free information.
https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.voy.com/31049/
Your Central Marketing Theme Should Be Like A Lens
Unique Selling Propositions, Pre-emptive Advantages, Competitive Advantages, Unique Selling Advantages, Unique Buying Advantages & positioning statements should be simple messages to lead people to recognize a value they want/need. These are examples of a marketer's central marketing theme.
It's hard even for experienced marketers to remember marketing details like these. It's like that for consumers who try to remember product features & benefits. It's hard for them to compare options. They need you to help them focus on benefits they should prioritize.
They need a framework. I've written some ideas below to help you frame your messages.
Your central marketing theme should be like a lens to focus your business on consumers' needs & desires.
Your central marketing theme should be like a lens to focus consumers on their conditions compared to what you offer.
Example: "When you need (a specific benefit), choose a better option at (business name)."
If that's your basic theme, you'd evaluate potential inventory orders & future offers based on helping customers get that benefit. How could you put products & services together to help customers produce that benefit?
Your full message should help customers recognize it as a benefit they want/need.
Your theme & messages should specifically link your business with a benefit in people's minds. As much as practical, your business should be an exclusive source of that benefit or a combination of benefits.
Though people may seem to have the same problem, they experience a problem differently.
Since people's experiences can be vastly different, you can help them diagnose problems & find their best options.
You should help niche members focus on what's most important for their situations. Some benefits may be important for a minority of members. They need you to help them find the best benefits for their lives.
When there are multiple options to solve or mitigate a problem, marketing messages can help people set priorities. People need to know which factors are more important so they can choose the best options for their situations.
Those options can include which retailers offer the best values. Your methods can make your business a better option than a competitor.
How much do you depend on manufacturer advertising? To attract a majority of consumers, manufacturers might emphasize the most popular benefits. In your area, some consumers might want less popular benefits.
Small stores can be profitable by selling to niche members who don't need all of the popular benefits.
Profitability can be maintained by testing methods & tracking niches as they change.
Find a Balance Between Specificity & Flexibility
You should carefully adjust your central marketing theme. You need to make it as specific as you can to make it meaningful to your niche. You need it to be flexible because your niche & available products will change.
As you get information, you can adjust your marketing methods. As you get responses to your advertising, you can adjust your offers.
Even if competitors sell the same products, they might focus on a narrow range of benefits. You should help niche members get specific benefits that may be less popular. Your niche members might not know about less promoted benefits until they get information from you.
Example - People often get unwanted phone calls. Some phones can be set to block some calls. People can also assign special ring tones for specific callers. You should know which products offer those benefits & show consumers how to set them up.
Some manufacturers cram many potential benefits into products. It's especially true in high technology.
People get a complex product but they use a narrow range of features. Example - They want to make phone calls, but the same product is also a small computer & camera. Will they make calls & rarely use other features?
Do people want/need a device for high quality pictures or videos? Some cameras can be used to magnify small print. So people might want a built-in camera, even if they don't take pictures.
Are features cheap or high quality? Example - Many phones have built in cameras. Are those high quality cameras? Are they high quality phones with low quality cameras?
When products have multiple features, the overall quality can be hard to rate. Consumers might rate a cell phone at a 10 for phone calls, they might rate it at a 4 for texting. The built-in camera might rate at a 2. How would they rate its overall quality?
They probably buy a phone to communicate, but do they prefer calls or texting? That preference would determine their quality ratings.
If you base your business on offering only high quality products, how would low quality features fit your marketing theme?
If you have a good product selection & product knowledge, you can help people prioritize feature & benefit qualities.
How well can you help people avoid wasting money on features they won't use? You could offer an advantage of selling what people will use (possibly a simpler, less expensive product).
You should do your best to offer benefits people will use.
You might offer specific product brands but you'll sell the benefit of solving & avoiding problems. People pay for products/services so they get benefits.
People pay for phones & tablets so they can talk or text? Which is more important to them - sound quality or keypad size?
People may want the most modern products for social reasons (snob appeal). To impress anybody, people should know how to use those products.
Even if people want complex products, you could show them how to get maximum value from the features they use.
If it's a profitable proposition, it could be a Preemptive Advantage since competitors can do it, too.
Warning: If It Isn't Profitable, It Isn't An Advantage.
I encourage business owners to do what's unique. I should also warn you there are reasons some potential propositions aren't made.
It can be easy to offer what competitors don't or can't offer but it can be challenging to make profitable offers. If competitors don't offer something, it might be unprofitable. It depends a lot on a business's cost structure.
Setting up a cost structure is beyond the scope of this post.
Simple Meaningful Messages
Your central marketing theme should be short, simple & easy to remember.
Simplicity is important especially in short messages. People are distracted. When they hear or see messages, there are other things happening. There are environmental noises plus internal thoughts & feelings.
If they misunderstand a message, they may think they perceived it accurately, so they won't seek clarification.
It's vital to express a simple reason to buy, even if a product/service is complex.
When many details are crammed into a short message, people might be overwhelmed & miss details. As they try to understand a detail, they might misunderstand other details.
Multiple Step Sales Processes
If you have complex products/services, you'll probably need multiple step messages.
It's hard to explain many benefits in a minute or a small ad. What's necessary is to convince people to check a web site or call for more information.
A short message can be a summary of what matters most to a niche.
When consumers ask for information, you can guide them to select their best options.
Security systems use complex technology, so marketers ask consumers to request more information. In a minute, a company can express the importance of getting information instead of trying to get people to buy.
Simple Messages Should Lead To Deeper Messages
Your store's success depends on reasons people buy & use products & services. When you know these reasons, you can adjust your marketing & your in-store sales efforts.
Though your central marketing theme should be simple, it should focus on a combination of factors.
Let's use this example again: "When you need (a specific benefit), choose a better option at (business name)."
Who needs the benefit? Which option is better for this person? Why is it better?
These factors pertain to products/services & involve questions about who, what, where, when, why, how (often, much, long).
Some questions are: Who will buy a product/service? What will they buy? Why will they buy it? Why will they choose a specific version? Who will receive it? Who will use it? Why will they use it? How long will they use it?
Why is a specific version better in their specific situations? How is that specific version better for them? Can you quantify how much better? What makes their situations different than experiences of the general population?
What makes your store a better outlet for this product version?
These details will be too much to fit into a short statement, but they'll be your framework for your central marketing theme. Choose the most compelling details. Use the other details in your sales copy.
Buyers & Users Are Different
You might need to sell through alternative methods. An alternative method might require deep messages to different buyers. Deeper messages might require multiple step methods.
It's important to test messages so you can know how many details & steps you'll need to use.
Example: A medical alert company focuses on people who have disabled relatives. Elderly or disabled people might resist offers of an alert system. They don't want to believe they need to be monitored. They might consider it to be an expensive intrusion.
Somebody might buy a system & urge an elderly or disabled loved one to accept it.
The ads are focused on how buyers want to be sure their loved ones get necessary help. The buyers can feel better about their loved ones being helped & can assure their loved ones it's the right thing to do.
The simple message is a person needs the service. The simple message integrates with a deeper explanation. The deeper explanation is why a family needs the service. The deeper explanation supports the simple message. The family feels better because one member is safer.
Thank you for using my blog.
Please let me know if you need any clarifications.
Copyright 2017 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
thrivingbusiness@email.com
No competitor is invincible. You don't need
a miracle. Your business will THRIVE if you
have the right marketing.
Please click here for free information.
https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.voy.com/31049/
