Since there are over 16.6 million Internet Business Sites in
cyberspace how do you stand out from the crowd? One way is to
establish an USP. What is an USP you ask? USP stands for unique
selling proposition or unique selling point. The reason you need
an USP is to establish your business brand and identity so,
people remember your web site and want to do business with you.
By establishing a USP you can communicate why people should do
business with your company, instead of other sites, or your
competition on the web.
 
Resist stating your USP as being the best product or service for
your prospects. Self proclaimed superlatives, like the best -
fastest - or most, won't be accepted by potential customers
because, they will see your USP as self serving hype! Site
visitors see the best, fastest, and most superlatives plastered
all over the Internet on sites. You have to be more savvy, in
your sales copy-editing, to win over your potential customers.
 
In order to properly arrive at your USP, list the features of
your business, and itemize them from the strongest to the
weakest. Then translate your features into benefits for your
potential customers. In other words, try to think like your
customer ( i.e. - what's in it for them). I'm sorry, your
customer only cares about what your product or service will do
for them. Just keeping it real! Be careful, it is difficult
many times to distinguish between the features of your products,
and the benefits to your potential customer.
 
For instance, if I were to state to potential subscribers of
KeepitReal...Profitable!, ezine: "subscribe to the only ezine
that is written to share the latest tried and true web marketing
techniques". This would come off as a self proclaimed feature.
On the other hand, if I were to state:
 
1. Discover how to identify minority business sectors with high
consumer demand and low competition;
 
2. Learn how to get your web site to rank well in the search
engines;
 
3. Find free software to increase your web marketing
effectiveness; and ...
 
4. Obtain syndicated content to add value to your ezine.
 
These statements would actually be listing some benefits to
subscribing to KeepitReal...Profitable!, e-zine. To explain this
another way, features just describe aspects of your e business,
while benefits tells your potential customers - what's in it for
them, when they buy your products and services. Always
illustrate benefits of buying from your business first, and then
describe features later.
 
Once you have translated the benefits your customer will obtain
from buying your product or services. Then visit the sites of
your top competitors and note the differences between their
products or services and yours. Just remember, people don't buy
based on the features of your business (although they may
justify buying based on features). They actually buy
emotionally, determined by how your business will fill a want
or need in their life. Therefore, many times your USP will be
based on your top benefits, presented in a way that is - unique
and distinct from your competition.
 
The full blown process of arriving at your USP is a
sophisticated one, that is beyond the scope of this article.
However, there are other great e-books and web sites that will
help you in the process of developing an USP. Like the free web
site of Joe Robson http://www.AdCopywriting.com, a great low
cost source for net copywriting and developing a USP, is Make My
Words Sell!, again by Joe Robson and Ken Evoy, two of the most
successful web business persons, in terms of small business
sales ( http://myws.sitesell.com/AdPronline.html ).