How to Define Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

Copywriting / 18 Oct 2021

A prospect’s attention span is short. According to Forbes, it currently stands at 8 seconds flat and decreases every year. That’s why, when it comes to defining your USP, professional copywriting services are a must.

A successful USP needs to be a triple threat. It must first address your ideal client’s pain, second, sell your solution, and third explain why it’s the best in the business.

Let’s explore each in more detail.

1. Understanding Your Prospect’s Pain

Pain. Inconvenience. Grief. When applied correctly, all 3 are powerful sales tools in a savvy marketer’s arsenal. Successfully leveraging a prospect’s pain to maximise gain comes down to 2 things: knowledge and empathy.

Knowing Your Ideal Client

Let’s talk about client avatars, one of the fundamentals of modern marketing.

You can only use pain to sell if you understand whom you’re writing to in intimate detail. 

Understanding the specifics of a pain point and what makes your prospect tick is fundamental to uncovering the heart of an issue. Otherwise, you’re only ever addressing a surface-level problem. Worse, your solution may be solving the wrong problem.

Remember, BlackBerry? 

Their business empire imploded because they focused on the wrong problem. They invested all their energy and attention in improving keyboard functionality on a business phone. What they should have been doing was asking if this was what their audience wanted. As it turned out, it wasn’t. What they wanted was one phone that could do it all, AKA the iPhone.

Demonstrating Relatability

People buy from people ‘like them’. That’s one reason why influencer marketing is so popular. Prospects need to know that you see them, hear them, and understand them. Even better if you can convey in your messaging that, at one time, you were them.

Empathy goes a long way to building trust fast. It demonstrates that you not only understand your prospect’s problems but that you value them enough to create a solution.

2. Selling Your Solution as the Best in the Business

To sell your solution as the best on the market, you need to understand what your clients see in you and how you’re different from your competitors.

Never assume anything. It makes you look foolish and can lead to catastrophic results (hello again, BlackBerry).

Analyse Your Competitors

The key to success in a cutthroat industry is differentiation. You’re looking for that memorable sweet spot where quality and value overlap.

Investing energy inputting your unique stamp on your services, especially when your competitor’s offer is similar to yours, is a must and reaps significant rewards.

The critical question becomes how is your agency different, and why does it matter to your ideal client?

•     Is it what you do? Reflect on your services. Are they the same? Is there something you offer that they don’t or something you do better?
•     Is it how you do business? Consider your brand values and tone of voice.
•     Is it whom you do business with? Refer back to your client avatar. What is it that makes your competitor appealing to your ideal client? And how can you make sure your offer wins out every time?

Learn From Your Clients

Current ideal clients are a gold mine of information because they’ve already invested in your services. They’ve successfully made the transition from prospect to client. By working with them directly, you’re able to refine your ideal client avatar and focus your messaging on what matters most to them. It’s all about them and their needs, after all.

Key questions to ask current clients that fit your ideal client profile include:

•     How do they use your service currently?
•     What is it that they value most?
•     How have you impacted their business?
•     Which of your competitors were they considering before they found you?
•     What was the deciding factor that made them choose you?

3. Consistent and Cohesive Application

Your USP must be more than words on a page. It’s a position you take, as a business, that’s incorporated into everything you do and by everyone that does it.

As a consumer, there’s nothing worse than a strong message, inconsistently applied. It undermines the sentiment behind it and is a surefire way to alienate those you’re trying to attract.

Ensure your Marketing and Sales teams work effectively to communicate your message – in peaceful harmony with your copywriting. Authenticity is a key component in your USP’s overall success.

Want to Work Together?

Constructing a USP that says the right things, in the right way, to the right people is no mean feat. We know that our professional white label copywriters are up to the task. So, whether your agency is constructing its own USP or creating one for a client, we’d be happy to help.

Book your discovery call today, and let’s start the ball rolling.