Marketing - Let Your Prospects Know Why They Can'T Live Without You

What sets your business apart from the competition? Why are you unique?

Not knowing the answers to these questions makes driving traffic to your site ten times more difficult than it should be. Which is why you must learn to develop your own Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

You must believe that your product is the best solution to your prospect's problems. You also need to know why you are the best solution and how you are different than the rest of your competition.

What you don't need, however, is a slogan. Slogans such as "Lowest Prices Anywhere" are meaningless and don't sell or attract customers to you. You know you have a slogan if any other business can use the phrase word-for-word in their own advertising. Slogans are therefore useless. What you want to develop is a Unique Selling Proposition.

Your USP must be UNIQUE. It is a single phrase that explains what sets you apart or why your prospect cannot live without what you have to offer. It sounds simple enough, but if you aren't a veteran copywriter with years of practice deciphering unique elements of businesses, you'll need to put a little effort into creating your own USP.

Taking the time to do it right is essential. Not only will it give you a clear picture of how special your product is and thus give you more confidence when you promote yourself, but it will paint that same picture for your prospects.

When they see how you are fundamentally better than anyone else, they'll be attracted to you. Your USP is the essence of what you offer and can be described in all of the following ways:

--It is your sales message condensed into one concise sentence, two at the most.

--It's more important to create desire and a sense of urgency than it is to be grammatically correct.

--It explains how your product benefits the customer.

--It's the first thing that comes to your customer's mind when he thinks about you or justifies his purchase to a friend.

--It can be used as your headline to grab tention and entice people to read more of your sales message.

--It does exist! At first glance you may not realize what separates you from the rest, but your product is unique is some special way. Just keep digging until you find it.

--It is so precise that if you changed or deleted a single word, it would damage the message. Every word counts.

Don't assume your customers know what makes you different. Tell them!