Finding a Unique Selling Point For Your Ad Campaigns
As your writer works on your ad content, one question is bound to come up. “What’s your USP? (unique selling point)” If you answer ‘price, service, or quality’ you’re way off mark.
Because there’s nothing unique about price, quality, or service. These are just categories. You’re USP might fall under one of these, but there has to be more…there has to be a method, and that method has to fulfill a desired shared by your target audience.
So let’s start with an ad for something common. Something with enough competition to really make it difficult to sell your product. Let’s just start with the same product that’s been filling your inbox with tons of spam every day…the online prescription drugs. (I should mention here that Copy For Sale never wrote any of those emails, and we never will. I’m just using the market to illustrate a technique.)
Taking one at random from my ‘junk mail’ box, the headline reads “We guarantee 100% top-quality of all products! ” Hardly an effective selling point. As someone who knows nothing about the difference between generic and brand name medications, I figure that pills are pills. If I’m unhappy with how a drug is working, I’ll go to my doctor and ask for something different. It wouldn’t occur to me to go to another drug store…online or offline. I think it’s safe to assume that my understanding would echo with other spam targets.
So let’s talk less about quality and more about a desire. Because I’m not getting paid to do a complete market analysis, I’ll just assume that someone who thinks the way I do is the target here. So what can this online store do for me? What kind of solution does this store offer?
In some situations (like where the actual product doesn’t differ from store to store) the supplier has to offer something extra. Chances are, they’re not going to beat anyone on price, so maybe speedy delivery? No…because it only takes me fifteen minutes to fill a prescription at the store down the street. How about convenience? That works, but what about the 5,000,000 other online websites? Well now it’s time for us to fine tune the campaign.
If I’m interested in buying a drug, then the USP should be connected with it somehow. But we need something that doesn’t cost much. The easiest solution is information. We could pay a writer to research the online pharmacy industry and write a report about it. Perhaps detailing the legality issues. Or maybe a report on alternative healthcare products…maybe even a whole e-book.
No…not good enough! It’s got to be something unique. Not so that it will provide for the masses, but so that it will provide for the few who will actually take time to read the ad. It has to focus on them. It has to pick them out like the new military targeting systems. What separates my needs from all the others? What do I want.
Well, I’d like a big bottle of vicodin without getting a prescription…but that’s not legal, so let’s forget that idea too. Instead, let’s think about the fact that I really like vicodin. Let’s focus on the fact that millions of people are addicted to the stuff and don’t know how to come off it.
“Our company is here to help you, not provide pharmaceuticals! That’s why when you order from our online catalog, we (anonymously) send you FREE step-by-step guides to help you or loved ones fight prescription drug addiction!”
Now that’s a USP. No, it won’t appeal to everyone. But it will appeal very much to some. It will tap into a crowd and touch them where they can’t resist. The pharmacy suddenly becomes a life line instead of a drug dealer.
Now for your next campaign, find a USP that no one else can offer. But don’t think about your company. Think about your market. And then pick out a tiny portion of that market. And design your USP for them specifically.
USP - Finding a Unique Selling Point For Your Ad Campaign |
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