Brainstorming Your Unique Selling Proposition

By Mike Wienke

Whether a unique selling proposition (USP) is for your business, a specific product or for yourself, it is a necessity. It’s the thing that makes you different from your competition, and more importantly, it turns browsers into buyers.

The concept of the USP was originally proposed in the 1940’s by Rosser Reeves, an advertising executive at Ted Bates & Company. While the original intent was to explain why certain advertising campaigns were more successful than their competition, the idea of the USP has become increasingly more accepted and applicable outside the world of advertising.

To find your USP, you need to ask yourself four basic questions. Ideally, by performing an adequate amount of research beforehand and performing some simple thought experiments and brainstorming activities, you’ll be able to develop and hone in on your USP without a great deal of difficulty.

I. Who Is My Target?

This may seem like a relatively simple question, and it may very well be, but before you can begin to develop your unique selling proposition, you need to determine who you’re trying to sell to. Why? Simple. What may be unique to one consumer may be well worn territory to a slightly different consumer. By making a misjudgment here, you are hindering the rest of the process.

Brainstorm Technique: Start with a blank sheet of paper with the words “Target Consumer” circled in the middle of the paper. Ask yourself a few key questions.

• Who’s buying my product?
• What are they interested in?
• What other things do they buy?
• Where are they going to buy this product?

As you begin to answer these questions and create more of your own, use mind mapping to capture your thoughts and create a complete picture of your target consumer.

II. Why Are They Buying This Product?

What need does this product, service or person fill? Is it speed? Convenience? Social status? Look carefully at your target consumer and construct a list of the motives behind their purchase. It’s possible that there is one single reason that every consumer chooses to purchase, but in all likelihood there are a wide variety of reasons. Keep working at your list until you feel like you’ve exhausted the possible reasons.

Brainstorm Technique: A good technique that will help encourage you to keep searching for possible reasons is an idea quota. The goal of an idea quota is to establish a preset number of ideas you need to generate as you keep thinking until you achieve it.

Once you’ve completed the list, compare it to your product. If there are aspects of your product that don’t match up with a consumer’s reasons to buy, you need to either cross them off the list or think of creative reasons why bucking that trend is beneficial to the consumer.

III. What Does My Competition Offer?

For a unique selling proposition to be successful, it must truly be unique. It seems redundant to say, but it bears repeating. If your competition CAN claim it or is ALREADY claiming it, then it can’t be your USP. The quickest way to determine what makes your product break out of the sea of sameness is to perform an audit of your competitive set. Research may not be as fun or inspiring as a brainstorm, but it is irreplaceable in this instance. Identify what the claims are and look for ways in which your product is different.

IV. How Can I Convince People To Buy My Product?

At this point, you should have a good estimate of who you’re selling to and what’s influencing their purchase decisions. And, you’ve done research into the products you’ll be competing against. It’s time to take this knowledge and find the fertile territory where you can stake a claim.

Brainstorm Technique: Begin by creating a list of benefits your product offers that none of your competitors are delivering. Once you’ve exhausted your options, create a second list. This list will feature your target consumer’s purchase influencers. With these two lists in hand, it’s time to use a brainstorm technique called forced connection. The goal here is to take a benefit from list one and create a connection to a purchase influencer on list two. Create as many connections as you can in the time you have available. The more options you have, the better you’ll be prepared for the next step.

V. How Do I Construct A Unique Selling Proposition?

Once you’ve created a list of forced connections, it’s time to hone them down. The easiest way to achieve that goal is to fill in the blank at the end of the following sentence. “When you use this product, you will…” Keep your answers short. If you can’t say it in one sentence, you’ve got more refining to do. The final product will be a list of potential USP’s that describes your product. All that’s left is to choose one. If you’re research inclined, you can use an analytical tool like A/B testing to see which USP resonates with your consumers. Another option would be to look for consensus among a group of trusted advisors. But ultimately, it comes down to you. A USP needs to represent both your product and your vision for the future to succeed.

About the Author

Mike Wienke
Throughout his 12 years in the marketing industry, Mike has lead and facilitated hundreds of brainstorms. Over the course of his career he’s created unique, compelling advertising and promotional concepts for some of the biggest names in the soft drinks, technology, chemical sciences and beer industries. He currently works as a Creative Director at Moosylvania Marketing. Check out his website here.