Now is the time to work on your Unique Selling Proposition!

As we look for our economy to improve it is vital to position your business as the vendor to buy from. A lot of marketing experts make a big deal about being unique. They rave on and on about ‘finding out what sets you apart’. They call it a USP, or a Unique Selling Proposition – the one thing that you do and your competitors don’t offer.

So is it really as important as they say?

In a word – YES!!!

Nothing can emphasize enough how important it is to be different. Especially in this economy you need to understand that people have to decide between you and your competition. They have to discern the differences between you and other suppliers, before they can choose who to buy from. If you don’t have a point of difference, there’s no reason for anyone to buy from you, unless you discount. You end up in a price war, with nothing to fall back on. It sounds like a recipe for going broke.

So what does a purple cow have to do with all of this? If you are riding down a country road with cow pastures all around, what do you see? Herds of cows. Brown cows, black cows, white cows and any number of mixtures of those colors. Do you ever look at an individual cow? But then standing in the field your eye captures a purple cow and you not only look, you might stop to look some more because it is "remarkable".

In Seth Godin's book “Purple Cow, Transform your business by being Remarkable”, he highlights the challenges today’s marketers face in getting the attention of the buyer. The old strategy of massive advertising just doesn't work the way it has in the past. There is too much noise out there. So how do you reach the buyer, you have to be remarkable, the purple cow. Find out what your target market wants. What will improve the buying experience for them? Position your product or service to meet that need and viola; you have a powerful unique selling proposition.

Push your USP now so that when your target market is ready to buy, your business is the first place they come to buy.