What Is a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) in Marketing?

Launching a new product or service can be challenging in our competitive economy, no matter how long you’ve been in business. This can be especially daunting when marketing experts are still quoting a 2018 Harvard Business Review statistic claiming that 95% of new product launches fail.

This widespread fallacy has been refuted in several studies, with the prevailing accepted research revealing a more realistic 40% product failure rate across industries. [1] Still,that’s a rather formidable statistic to overcome, but small business owners can avoid failure and orchestrate a successful launch if they understand how to properly define and leverage the new product or service's unique selling proposition (USP).

Also referred to as a unique selling point, a unique selling proposition (USP) is at the heart of what differentiates your product or service from the competition. In a crowded economic landscape, aligning your USP with current trends and consumer demand is one of the strongest methods for establishing a competitive advantage. Calibrating your marketing strategy to your USP helps attract and retain customers, and can be the driving force of growth supporting your SMB’s success.

The post-pandemic economic landscape is challenging SMBs and large enterprises alike because customer loyalty has evolved. Studies show that from 2022 to 2023, the number of customers loyal to one or more brands declined from 79% to 68%, with additional data revealing that incentivized loyalty has taken the largest hit. [2] 

Establishing and prioritizing your unique selling proposition in your marketing strategy has the dual impact of not only attracting customers from other brands but also helping you retain existing customers. There are two distinct benefits to leveraging your USP properly—improved customer conversions and increased customer retention rates.

Customer conversions

American consumers are exposed to an average of between 4,000 and 10,000 ads daily, so it’s important that each advertisement is designed to make an impression. [3] One of the strongest conversion methods you can integrate into your inbound marketing strategy is crafting a USP that clearly and definitively sets your product or service apart from competitors as a market leader. 

In fact, 53% of consumers are drawn to brands capable of establishing themselves as market leaders while drawing attention to how their product addresses a flaw or shortcoming in the competition. [4] A well-defined USP positioned this way can quickly increase the number of actively engaged leads in your inbound funnel.

Customer retention

Maximizing conversions is a losing battle if you can’t keep customers engaged with your brand. Featuring your USP heavily in your retention strategy can go a long way in reminding your customers why they became your customers to begin with, while reassuring them that your products and services still offer more value than the competition. As consumer demands and expectations change, this messaging should evolve accordingly.

USPs can help your marketing team create a powerful brand image that can make your products and services stand out to those searching for solutions online or in a brick-and-mortar retail setting. Below are some of the best examples of USPs in the marketplace today.

• Death Wish Coffee touts itself as the “world’s strongest coffee.” Taking the stance as the world’s strongest might come across as hyperbole, but when the brand backs up its claim as one with the highest caffeine content available on the market and pairs that with a rich, robust flavor, coffee aficionados to whom caffeine content matters take notice.

• Stripe as a SaaS payment platform leverages a unique approach to USP by targeting developers specifically by offering a “financial infrastructure for the internet.” Rather than retain full control over its platform, Stripe opens its API and software to developers, allowing users to more easily bridge disparate systems while creating a seamless payment experience for customers.

• Spotify for Podcasters leans into a USP based on accessibility. Getting involved in podcasting can be a highly technical and complicated undertaking, so Spotify for Podcasters reassures anyone looking to break into podcasting that the service provider provides “powerful tools for beginners, pros, and everyone in between—all for free.”

• Nerd Fitness breaks down the barriers in stereotypes with its USP focused on inclusivity. The platform combines weight loss with gamification to appeal to its target audience, claiming they are focused on their mission: “We help nerds, misfits, and mutants lose weight, get strong, and get healthy, permanently!”

• Geico, an insurance company, leverages a USP that is designed to hone in on consumers’ desire to save as much as they can with as little effort invested as possible. Their campaigns built around the fact that “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance” appeal to consumers with limited time who still want to save money in a way that historically has been considered a time-consuming undertaking.

The creation of a relevant and impactful USP should take place during the development of the marketing strategy for your products or services and should be an iterative process that helps determine which product or service strengths make the shortcomings worth overlooking.

• In-depth market research should focus on identifying your ideal customer’s preferences and needs and those of the customers patronizing your competitors.

• Use research to identify your target customers based on their online behaviors, buying habits, interests, and other factors that impact how they engage with your products or services.

• Identify your competition’s strengths and weaknesses, as these become opportunities to leverage your marketing and USP to capture the attention of your customers. One of the most important questions you can answer in your research is how the competition is solving your customer’s unmet needs better with their products or services than what you have to offer them.

Once you’ve conducted research on your own customers and competitors, it’s time to transform what you’ve learned into actionable messaging aligned with your brand identity that you can integrate into your marketing strategy. To accomplish this, you should have solutions to several challenges you might face in the process.

Your weaknesses are as important as your strengths 

Your USP shouldn’t only focus on your strengths. A well-crafted USP should also enumerate and acknowledge any weaknesses or opportunities in your products and services. Addressing shortcomings and weaknesses in the verbiage of your USP ensures customers know what to expect in their experience with your brand, and provides a roadmap as to what they can expect in terms of future improvements.

Don’t make your USP complicated 

Simple, clear messaging highlighting your value proposition, combined with compelling video and graphics or customer testimonials, can go a long way toward securing the attention and loyalty of your target audience.

Your USP isn’t carved in stone 

Your advertising messaging around your USP can be as adaptable as the marketplace demands. If consumer expectations and trends shift, and it becomes necessary to leverage a different advantage or strength in your products or services, you can pivot and create new campaigns to highlight your unique solutions to the concerns they are now seeking to solve. 

You can also use A/B testing to determine the effectiveness of various versions of your USP in order to maximize its impact. Monitoring competitor USPs can help in the testing and evaluation of your own USP, as it can help craft messaging that allows your strengths to outshine their value propositions.

Let your USP speak across channels

Integrating your USP across social media channels, advertising platforms, emails, and content marketing campaigns helps increase your visibility and communicate to customers what value you’re bringing to their table. An effective USP is flexible and able to be integrated into your calls to action, and case studies, and be prevalent in customer testimonials.

Growing your customer base requires aligning your marketing strategy with a unique selling proposition built around the strongest elements of the products or services you have to offer. If your marketing team is struggling to identify how best to test your messaging or perform the necessary market research to actually craft an effective USP, you can explore more GetApp resources here:

• How To Automate Your Marketing Strategy (Maturity Model) 

• How To Use Predictive Analytics: 5 Steps To Get Started

• Is Your Sales Dashboard Missing This Crucial Pipeline Metric?

As your marketing team works to align your USP with marketing tactics for success, use GetApp’s All-in-One Marketing Platform Software directory to identify the right tools to conduct market research and track your USP's performance across multiple customer engagement channels.