If you came to me and asked me to help you to grow your business, the first thing I would ask is

‘Can you define unique selling points for your business?’, or to put it another way, ‘Why, in your opinion, do your clients purchase your product/service from yourself and not from your nearest competitor’?

Jot down 3-4 answers.

Now take a good look at those answers – are they unique?

Does the competition offer the same?

Are you emphasizing certain aspects that your competition isn’t?

Are you doing things differently?

Are you perceived as being different even though you aren’t?

Is it the same product/service but the business model is different?

The more you analyze your answers, the more you may realise that you have true unique selling points – or not!  So can you define unique selling points for your business?

If you are struggling, it would be a good idea to call your clients, those that are happy and are repeat purchasers, and ask them why they buy from you? What, in their opinion, are the key reasons they prefer to do business with you. You may be surprised at their answers and come up with unique selling points you didn’t even realise you had created.

Now would also be a good time to call clients that haven’t purchased from you in a while and ask them if they are willing to be frank with you as to why they have taken their business elsewhere. Why do they prefer your competition or why do they not require the product/service anymore, etc.

Let’s assume you have worked on the exercise above and discovered or possibly, teased out your unique selling points – now let’s examine how strong they are.

Could your competition easily change it’s business model/service/product to match?

How can you defend your USPs?

How can you build/strengthen your USPs?

How can you create new USPs?

How can you succinctly define and promote your USPs better?

On which social media (SM) outlets do your target audience search for your product/service?
What key words should be linked to your USPs?

Now update your SM and website with these keywords, rewrite the ‘target audience pull’ messages and the ‘Calls to Action’ text. Work with an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) expert to optimise your site.

Work with your SM marketing company to align all of the output according to your newly defined USPs.

Keep analyzing and monitoring results to ensure your SM campaigns have a ‘return on marketing
dollars investment’.

Lesley Anne Rubenstein-Pessok is a member of a group of Essex-based professional mentors known as The Consortium.  Together The Consortium has delivered bespoke mentoring support to 1000+ businesses over 10 years via schemes run by Essex County Council, BEST Growth Hub and LoCASE.  For more information contact Lesley here.