Why unique selling propositions are a thing of the past

Category General, Marketing concepts | 16 comments »

Diversified Selling Propositions; the modern equivalent for USP

Back in the 50’s a fellow named Tosser Reeves is said to have come up with the term we all know well these days; ‘Unique selling proposition’ or the more oft used acronym – USP. At least if you’re in the marketing game, you should. The main concept was that by promoting certain key aspects, features and benefits over time would drive home the message creating a strong brand in the consumer’s minds.

And while it is a tried, tested and true methodology over the years for the marketing munchkins, it may not be all powerful and defendable in a modern media world, at least not in every situation. You see the word ‘unique’ alone denotes that there are singular reasons for buying decisions on the part of consumers. For that matter singular actions, as we can certainly have primary and secondary conversions metrics in play.

This fundamentally asserts that telling a people a singular message time and time again ultimately will convince them to purchase. While this can work well these days in many instances, often times it isn’t that simple. Not only do we have a variety of media approaches available to deliver our message, but people are often more complex and buy for different reasons. From the emotional to the practical, buying decisions are varied on a given product (or service).

By approaching your marketing with a singular approach it forces the consumer to adapt the message to their own needs.

Can we agree to disagree?

Another issue that arises is that the original USP concepts were more of a branding tool for building a long term concept into relationships with consumers. These days buying decisions are often based from a wide variety of factors and the speed of change means more of a moving target. Being more fluid means a more diversified message.

Obviously there is an inherent risk in diluting your over-al message, thus some tactical decisions are paramount. One way to find ideas if to mine existing customers by asking them what qualities drove their buying decision.

1. Quality of product/service?
2. Competitive/low Prices?
3. Quality customer service?
4. People that referred them?
5. Features or benefits?
6. Emotional draw?

Now try and nail down just ONE that represents you. In almost all cases such qualitative data shows that people have a wide variety of reasons for purchasing decisions. There may be common elements, but always a diversified set of factors are involved. Looking deeper, the demographics of age, location, income and the like will also create different buying decision patterns. This speaks to the difficulties in using ‘unique’ propositions over diversified approaches.

This is why in the modern media world you will often see multiple ads for the same campaign. Not only does this allow for targeting a variety of emotions towards purchase but also ensure that the consumer doesn’t ‘tune you out’ after enduring the same angle over and over.

Use with care

Ultimately you should scope out diversified selling propositions to cover a variety of consumer types and maximize the potential for success. This does not mean to get carried away and promise everything under the sun. Not only can this dilute the selling proposition, but runs the risk of not living up to your own promises; which is not the kind of branding we’re after.

Do your homework and isolate what your market holds and where you fit in. Find out what your primary and secondary demographics are and then work down from there as to what primary factors drive their buying decisions. From there some self assessment to find your strengths should begin to carve out your own DSP. What makes you stand out from the crowd and how do you reach out to consumers while filling the voids left by competitors in the market.

Unique is often not the case… it is more a combination of factors which makes you stand out form the crowd, who themselves are a diverse group in a multilevel media world.

It is certainly worth consideration…

Popularity: 50% [?]