A GREAT PINT TO REMEMBER-
SEE BELOW
By Sean D'Souza (Courtesy to Sean D'Souza
).
Are you struggling to create a memorable
positioning statement or USP (Unique Selling
Proposition) for your marketing? Do you
want to stand out from your competition,
but the uniqueness of your business seems
to elude you? Here’s a sneaky, vital
secret that turns conventional marketing
psychology on its head. By changing your
positioning statement, find out how to transform
your weakest link, into your strongest marketing
strategy ever!
Avis Is Only Number 2. So Why Go With Them?
Years ago, in the rental car market, Hertz
was chugging along merrily, with Avis a
distant second. With one Problem-Based USP,
Avis closed the gap. Their catch phrase,
We’re No.2, We Try Harder, ignited
the minds of the target audience like a
rampaging bush fire. They turned a liability
into an asset.
Southwest Airlines took to the skies with
a similar message. We’re Smaller Than
Everyone Else, they told us, while gently
explaining why their service was dramatically
better, as a direct consequence of their
size. They also turned a liability into
an asset.
In 2001, Harley Davidson proudly boasted
how their CEO was 38th on the waiting list
for the company's then, new V-Rod motorcycle.
And they took pains to describe how each
Harley was lovingly rolled off the plant.
The waiting period, which normally would
be perceived to be a negative, was turned
into a publicity coup that burned a stamp
of quality and a uniqueness into the brains
of every prospective Harley owner.
All of these companies took a cold, hard-nosed
look at reality. The superlatives in their
business had been taken. Instead they unearthed
their USP, in what most people would consider
a disadvantage of sorts.
Are You Doing What Sally Did?
Sally is one heck of a real estate agent.
Barely six months into real estate, and
she’s already forging a red-hot path
into the top ten salespeople in the country.
While her talents and persuasive powers
are formidable, there’s a little something
that puts her head and shoulders above the
rest of the crowd.
That Little Something Is A USP On Steroids!
If she chose to be unimaginative, Sally’s
USP or tagline could have ended up as pretty
run-of-the-mill. It could have ranged from
a tacky, Residential Properties for every
budget, to utterly boring, Getting Top Prices
for Your Home. All of which would see her
struggling to stand out, in a dog-eat-dog
me-too marketplace.
A goody-gum-drop USP would get her nowhere
in a hurry. She needed a USP with rocket
fuel in its tanks. Something that would
reach out and demand your attention without
hesitation.
If You Sold Your Home In A Week or less,
You Probably Got Too Little
That’s the USP that Sally created.
Can you see what I mean? Doesn’t that
USP go for your jugular? Sally’s target
audience is sellers, not buyers. If you
just sold a house, wouldn’t you feel
a twinge of regret? What if you were about
to sell a house?
Wouldn’t you be curious to find out
just a little bit about what Sally does
to lasso in a higher return? And wouldn’t
you be just a little bit wary if the next
real estate agent you met told you that
she could sell your house in next to no
time?
You’ve just witnessed the psychological
power of the Problem-Based USP.
How To Create A Knockout USP For Your Business
Let’s assume you’re in the wine
selling business. To own real estate in
a customer’s brain, you’d have
to do battle with about a zillion other
wines. Yet decades ago, Paul Masson cut
through the clutter with a simple statement.
We sell no wines before their time. With
charming simplicity, they turned a negative
waiting period into an exploitable advantage.
You too can turn your liabilities into
assets. Stop screaming about how magnificent
you are, and look for the apparent glitches
in your business. Let’s just consider
a few scenarios.
Are You Perceived To Be Too Expensive,
Slow, Or Maybe Just Too Busy?
When we started our website at PsychoTactics.com,
we were faced with a similar dilemma. As
human beings, we often disdain simplicity
and common sense. The distillation process
needed to simplify a concept into easy-to-munch
bites is often just seen as common sense,
and of no huge intrinsic value.
Taking that liability into consideration,
PsychoTactics.com created a USP concept,
that stressed the fact that everything was
not just old, but at least 5000 years old.
In fact, everything has already been tried
and tested. That put us in a mould that
is totally different from all the new-fangled
marketing angles you hear about every day.
The liability of common sense was turned
into the asset of experience.
Best of all, it turned a problem into a
winning USP concept.
The Biggest Reason Why You Should Search
For The Hiccup In Your Business Strategy
Finding what makes you beneficially different
is a notoriously difficult task. However,
just about any client or potential buyer
will very quickly identify your weaknesses
and liabilities. If it’s a technical
problem, you can fix it. If it’s a
conceptual problem such as speed or price,
it is much harder to fix.
This, however, is the key to your success.
The more you try to keep your weaknesses
and liabilities under wraps, the more customers
will uncover them. On the other hand, take
a liability and turn it into an asset. Expose
a problem to the harsh glare of the spotlight
and transform your frog into a prince.
This brave act will gain the instant admiration
and support of your clients, while giving
you a USP that others simply won’t
have the guts to match.
Can You Make The Leap?
Creating a negative USP is a tricky, dangerous
tactic, and one not to be taken lightly.
"We're slow and proud of it!"
is hardly a selling point, yet fulfills
the requirements laid out in the article.
However, if you’ve been struggling
with your USP, as many companies do, this
is a tactic that may work well for you—as
it has with some of the companies above.
It’s time you tickled your customer’s
brain with some sharply focused psychological
marketing jujitsu. Find the weaknesses and
liabilities in your business, carve them
into a dynamic USP, and the attention your
business has been craving for, will be yours
forever more!
Offline website marketing
Courtesy to http://www.sellthosewidgets.com
OK, now you have a website and your need
to promote it, right?
Regardless of whether your site is part
of your business, or the whole of your business,
there are a few basics that you can cover
to promote your site.
This article will look at some methods
of offline marketing that you should incorporate
into your web marketing plan.
Drop your URL
Your URL (www.widgets.com) is the key to
your site, so you should as standard include
it in all the same places as you include
other contact details.
Including:
Promotional material (brochures, catalogues,
flyers, posters, etc)
Letters
Business cards
In addition, when working online at any
point there is usually some means to include
your URL, such as attaching it to the bottom
of your emails and putting it in your profile
and / or signature in discussion forums.
It should be noted that discussion forums
have different policies regarding dropping
your URL in your posts, so you should check
this before doing so. Your reputation online
is as important as your offline reputation.
Publicity
Getting a bit of free publicity is good
for any business!
It is especially good for websites, as
there are so many out there, any special
media interest can result in a high level
of pre-qualified traffic.
Such gold dust is hard to find, as I'm
sure you can imagine!
Try to find publications that specialise
in your niche industry and suggest a possible
topic for them to cover. Even suggest to
submit an article and ask if they would
publish it (remember, you've got lots of
well written, juicy content for your site,
haven't you?).
Even if they say no, they will almost certainly
have a look at your site and keep you mind.
It's always beneficial to have them know
about your site - you never know what will
turn up in the future.
When starting a new business, you need
to build up relationships with people in
related fields - you might have to give
more than you receive, but you will have
established a working relationship and built
upon your reputation.
Competitions
These can go hand in hand with publicity.
If you have a product or service you can
give a away as a prize, try contacting media
organisations relative to your niche market.
If you are local try local papers, or local
radio. If you are national, go for the national
ones. If you have no regional specific products
or service, then go for publications that
target your customers (trade magazines,
journals, etc).
Publicise your event within your website,
in conjunction with the media organisation
that is working with you. Make a big deal
of it!
Promotional material To Top
This is more effective for websites who
are targeting a local or niche market.
By using posters, flyers, etc. with your
URL clearly posted you can increase local
recognition of your brand.
Try to target businesses that are related
to your subject area and therefore have
the same customers.
Good places to leave flyers and posters
are:
Pubs
Cafes
Cinemas / Theatres
Bus / Train Stations
Clubs (social clubs and societies)
Community Centres
Gyms / Sports Centres
Remember - you are dealing with the market
in which these businesses operate, so you
have a valuable bargaining tool - a small
mention on your website!
Word of mouth
Arguably the best form of marketing - a
referral from someone else!
With good content on your service and good
customer service, people will refer you
to their friends and family and customer
referrals don't come more qualified than
that!
Your budget
If you have a budget to spend then all
the better, but most new websites don't
have a budget for offline marketing.
Don't worry about it.
Your offline marketing campaign should
be focused on strengthening your brand (and
therefore URL) and should not be relied
upon to generate a lot of traffic.
However, you should be bringing in some
good qualified traffic to your site. Do
you what you can to spread the word about
your business and don't worry too much about
spending money on marketing.
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