Unique Selling Proposition

Science of Copywriting: Blab with Lamar Tyler

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Copywriting Blab with Lamar Tyler

For me, Lamar Tyler is one of my top answers to the question “If you could spend an hour with one person/celebrity, who would it be?” I have a TON of respect and admiration for Lamar’s business acumen, leadership and brilliance. Plus, he’s one of the coolest guys you’d ever want to meet.

Last weekend, I got my hour with The Man.

Lamar hosted the inaugural Traffic, Sales and Profit Lunch and Learn series on Blab, and I had the honor of being his guest. We discussed a lot of topics close to my heart, like:

  • What is a unique selling proposition (USP)?
  • How do I make people want what I sell?
  • The differences in writing emails, landing pages, general web copy, etc.
  • The most painful mistakes people make when writing copy
  • When it’s time to hire a professional copywriter
  • “Why can’t I find a good copywriter?”
  • and plenty more.

I also revealed the most powerful characteristics of email copywriting — and why some people should NOT hire a copywriter to write their emails for them. (I’ve told potential clients on multiple occasions I couldn’t do better than what they’re doing.)

Check it out: The Science of Copy Lunch & Learn

An Important Point I Didn’t Get to Make in the Interview

I realized after the Blab that I forgot an significant point when we talked about why it’s sometimes difficult to find a good copywriter. If you’re expecting a stranger to instantly create a miraculous transformation of your business, you might be expecting too much.

Your copywriter isn’t (necessarily) weak just because he can’t make your boring offer exciting…or make a dead mailing list suddenly spring to life.

I’ve often quipped that I do work miracles, just not on demand. (Yes, I’ve said it to potential clients.) Even copy that seems brilliant doesn’t work 100% of the time. Believe me, I know from embarrassing experience. All of the pros have. For optimal results, you have to make the right offer to the right audience at the right time.

On the other hand, a great offer or a hot list can make even a pedestrian copywriter look like a superstar…

Resources mentioned during the conversation:

Lamar’s Traffic, Sales and Profits private Facebook Group

Bencivenga Bullets

The Gary Halbert Letter

Sprint Stole Verizon’s Spokesperson. So What?

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Sprint Marketing

You almost have to give someone at Sprint a standing ovation for their recent advertising campaign featuring your Verizon’s “Can you hear me now” guy, Paul Marcarelli.

It’s the advertising equivalent of a judo hip toss.

Verizon is the big bully with more than 2X Sprint’s subscriber base. A lot of money was spent to make Marcarelli the face of the company (as well as the butt of their jokes). Now underdog Sprint is using Verizon’s own “brand equity” against itself.

One of the cleverest advertising coups in recent memory.

I’m convinced these campaigns won’t save Sprint’s sinking ship. I’m also convinced YOU can profit by studying what’s happening here.

Here’s What Sprint Did Right

The commercials are attention-grabbing. The first time you see THE Verizon guy playing for the other team, it’s nearly impossible to ignore.

  • Your brain has to try make sense of it
  • There’s controversy: what made Marcarelli go Benedict Arnold and switch to Sprint? (Turns out, it’s not call quality)
  • It’s funny in an “Oh no he didn’t” kind of way

It’s critical to hold your audience’s attention long enough to tell them what they need to know. That’s what gives you the opportunity to generate interest and desire.

There’s no rational reason for it, but “celebrities” almost always bring a level of trust to the products/services/brands they’re attached to. Over time, spokespeople can become (niche) celebrities and garner familiarity, likeability and trust.

At Halloween, Flo from Progressive is more popular than Dracula.

The ads are also focused on a value proposition: 50% cost savings. That seems to be the only thing Sprint has to offer…

Why It Won’t Make a Difference

— Sprint provides inferior service.  They’re even admitting that fact in these commercials.

Even if this advertising campaign effort brings in a lot of new subscribers (Q4 projections indicate otherwise), the business loses big time when people cancel their service due to poor quality service. This is a long-time problem Sprint hasn’t fixed.

— No one wants the 50% Off plan. Sprint’s CEO has stated the company will probably stop promoting this low-priced plan in the near future. Potential subscribers are looking for features they can’t get at that price.

The profit margins on this plan are so thin that they virtually guarantee a continuation of low-quality service in the future.

Quick Takeaways That Will Make a Difference for YOU

1) Provide great service. Or team up with/outsource to someone who can deliver great service where you’re weak.

2) Find out what your target market wants and offer it to them — in a way that highlights the benefits valuable to THEM.

3) Set your prices at a level that empowers you to a) offer great service and b) invest back into your business. You can discount yourself right out of business!

You don’t have to have a million dollar marketing budget to put those ideas into practice!

A Weird Thing About Dreams

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Vision USP
Have you ever nodded off to sleep for just a few seconds – and somehow had an entire dream play out in that short span of time?

I think it’s happened to most of us at one time or another.

I don’t know the science behind it, but I don’t think it’s simply the result of an inaccurate perception of time that occurs when you’re sleeping (like the “dream in a dream” scenes from the movie Inception). Could it be that the mind is packed with energy, excitement and curiosity that is released the moment unconsciousness opens the door? The story doesn’t need to until in a logical, linear way; you brain looks at and plays with that curious energy from multiple angles. And it all happens in an instant.

Words are very much the same. When you read or hear a word, you immediately feel the feelings and remember the memories you associate with that word. You don’t think about the multiple ways Webster defines it. For me, “love” paints a picture of the Dina, the joy of my life.

We’re all like that.

There’s something similar at play in your business – or there can be. A well-articulated Unique Selling Proposition is packed with intrinsic meaning for the kinds of customers you serve. It resonates deeply with them.

You USP isn’t something you come up with so you can sound special, nor is it just something you think your target market wants to hear. It’s your story, stripped to its essence, at the point where it intersects with your customer’s story.

It’s not an issue of being unique for the sake of being unique. It’s about being uniquely-suited to produce the happy results your customers are searching for.

As John Carlton puts it, “This is the key to everything good that will happen in your business for the rest of your life.” It’s THAT important.

 

 

 

Are We Missing the Point (of Marketing)?

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Missing the Point of Marketing

An incalculable number of forces conspire to prevent your should-be customers from buying from you.

The purpose of marketing is to neutralize all those obstacles preventing a potential customer from acting in his own best interest (that is, doing business with you).

But before it can do that, there has to be some compelling reason why anyone should buy from you. That is not a marketing function, per se. It’s a matter of creating an outstanding product or service.

“Advertising doesn’t create a product advantage. It can only convey it…No matter how skillful you are, you can’t invent a product advantage that doesn’t exist.” ~ Bill Bernbach

Compelling copy is extremely important. But most copywriters will admit…if they’re knowledgeable and honest… that presenting a great product to the right audience is MOST of the work.

– Great messaging for a worthless product won’t accomplish much in the long run.
– Strong marketing aimed at the wrong crowd will miss the mark.

On the other hand, if you offer a product that scratches a specific itch in that hard-to-reach spot on the back of a specific audience, any marketing message you create has inherent persuasive power. The Unique Selling Proposition itself grabs the attention and interest of the potential customer.

“This is EXACTLY what I need!” he might think to himself. That’s when he starts selling himself on the idea of buying from you.

That’s why it’s so critical for entrepreneurs, salespeople and marketers to discover their own USP and articulate it with clarity.

The point of marketing is not simply to sell whatever you’ve got. Marketing starts with making sure you’re selling something people want and need. Then you find ways to help your target audience experience the advantages of buying your product or service.

As you think about your own USP, you may be interested in reading “Juxta-Positioning: Outmaneuvering Your Competitors Brilliantly.” Sometimes thinking about your product in relation to everything else out there can clarify what’s special about you.

Donnie

P.S. “A gifted product is mightier than a gifted pen.” ~ Gary Bencivenga

As people become increasingly savvy when it comes to weeding out ads, we have to get increasingly adept at communicating valuable messages about things that matter to people. That starts with having a gifted product, not being a wordsmith who uses flowery words to describe his crap.

Enabling Your Business “Insane Mode”

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By now you may have seen the Tesla “insane mode” video. It shows the reactions of unsuspecting passengers when the driver of the electric car takes the car from 0 to 60 miles per hour (96.6 kph) in just over 3 seconds — with no engine noise.

Your business has an insane mode, too. If and when you press the button, your sales can leap forward without warning. Profits can skyrocket. Marketing materials and sales pitches that used to fall flat start to perform like crazy.

I’m not the kind of guy who would present a “one size fits all” solution for success in business…but the one thing that can most consistently, most radically transform a business’ results is the discovery, articulation and integration of its unique selling proposition (USP).

“Yeah, I’ve heard this all before”

Fair enough. If you’ve been in business any length of time, you undoubtedly have heard about how important a USP is. You’ve probably even spent some time thinking about what your USP might be.

When you found out that the kind of thinking you have to do is hard work, did you press forward or quit?
When it seemed like there was nothing truly unique about your business, did you decide the only competitive advantage you have is quality and customer service?   Did you really think that was a good enough answer?

You’ve heard it before, but how far did you go to enable your insane mode USP?

The right USP can change an entire industry. (Just ask FedEx or Domino’s Pizza.)
It can reverberate around the world for decades. (Everyone knows which candy melts in your mouth, not in your hand.)

Jack Welch famously said, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.” What gives you the right to step onto the field to play with the big boys?

If you haven’t figured that out yet, you have some work to do.

 

Selling Lessons from the Trenches: Interview with ClearSales

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Selling is a transfer of enthusiasm from one person to another.

This is one of the common definitions of selling — and it’s a good one. It’s the job of the salesperson to connect the inherent benefits of a product or services with the needs and desires of the potential customer. For the buyer, getting what they want is something they can get excited about. The person doing the selling oftentimes has to find the enthusiasm-inducing elements and bring them to the top. And the more impassioned he is about those benefits, the more persuasive his presentation will be.

We’re all selling something. We might as well get good at it.

Last month, Ash Patel over at ClearSales interviewed me about big lessons I’ve learned selling products and services face-to-face and through the written word. I answer sales-related questions for people who find themselves in selling situations but don’t always think of themselves as salespeople.

The interview lasts 40 minutes:

You can take a look at the raw transcripts in the ClearSales blog.

Ash delineated 11 separate takeaway lessons:

  1. Personalize sales message (generic is BAD; any sales conversation should feel one-to-one)
  2. Focus on the customer, not on yourself, your company, or even primarily on the product itself
  3. Keep following up
  4. Sell the outcome, not the tool itself. This sounds obvious, but I’m constantly surprised by how many entrepreneurs, marketers and salespeople revert to selling their “thing” rather than the transformational results it produces for the buyer
  5. Avoid jargon and corporate talk, unless that’s the language your customers speak. A conversational tone usually works best
  6. Educate your prospects. It’s a great way to share value and position yourself as an expert at the same time
  7. Be strategic
  8. Spend at least as much energy converting and retaining clients as you spend on chasing new ones. The best new customer is a satisfied old customer
  9. Sales don’t happen by themselves.
  10. Recognize your own value. Confidence is a huge factor in successfully transferring enthusiasm
  11. Communicate that value. It’s not bragging if it’s true, right? Plus, you’re not bragging — you’re helping potential customers see all the ways you can make their lives better. Don’t be shy about making the world a better place in your own unique way.

Enjoy the interview!

What Marketing is All About

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“You’ve gotta come and see this!” my wife exclaimed as she ran into my office (which is any room with no kids in it at the time) last night.

“What is it?” I was curious what had made her so excited in the middle of the night.

“Just watch,” she said, unpausing the DVR. She played the commercial for the 2014 Honda Odyssey.

Normally she doesn’t get excited about commercials, but this one had her head spinning. “Honey, I need that van!” kept rolling off her lips for the rest of the night.

Honda is really onto something here.

What Makes This a Great Commercial?

There’s nothing particularly brilliant about the special effects. It’s not thigh-slappingly funny. But it got the only thing that truly matters right.

It showcases the built-in vacuum.

The commercial is brilliant because it highlights a brilliant move Honda made when they designed this car.

honda-odyssey-2014-built-in-vacuumimage via theshoppingmama.com

Maybe they hired a mind reader, or maybe they just asked van drivers what they wanted in a new van. However they came up with the idea, they’re now offering something that moms and dads (the ideal customers for vehicles like this) have been wishing they’d had for years.

That’s what marketing is all about folks. Finding out what people want and helping them get their hands on it.

Honda’s the first car manufacturer to offer this innovation (if I can call it that), but they won’t be alone for long. Their unique selling proposition won’t be unique for long.

What do they need to do to keep the advantage?

P.S. Are you having trouble crafting your own rock-solid USP? You should consider this.

In Case You Missed It: USPs and More

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Yesterday, I had the distinct privilege and wonderful pleasure of being interviewed by Yasmin Razaq for her Explode Biz Profits event.

We talked about:
– how recessions are good and USPs are bad
– possibly the dumbest advertising sign I’ve ever seen
– two foundational principles for writing copy that people will respond to, and
– how to keep your messages out of email jail.

I also shared how you can get my ebook Stealth Selling gratis.

Go check out the replay at http://businessmarketinggirl.com/explodebizprofitsreplays/. I’m not sure how long Yasmin will keep this page open, so if you have any interest at all, don’t wait too long.

Update: If you’re interested in hearing the recording of this hour-long interview, I’ve got it right here. If you’re interested in getting a copy of my book, send me an email and we might be able to arrange something.

A note on Unique Selling Propositions
Theodore Levitt said that selling focuses on satisfying the needs of the business, whereas marketing works to satisfy the needs of the customer.

With that in mind, the USP is inherently focused on the company, product or service itself. Even a benefit-rich USP can be off-base.

Feature-focused USP: “Our product is awesome. It’s made from the strongest steel ever produced.”
Benefit-focused USP: “Our product is awesome. It’s more durable than other products, so they don’t have to be replaced as frequently, saving time and money.”

Sounds good, right? But even the benefit-driven USP can be improved upon. These are selling points, rooted in the needs of the one who needs to make the sale. What if you moved into the realm of marketing defined by Levitt?

Unique Value Proposition: “Our customers are awesome. They save time, money and headache by using with the most durable product available. It works more reliably, for longer periods of time and with fewer replacements needed.”

The wording is purposefully corny, but you see the difference, don’t you? It may seem like a tiny distinction, but even the tiniest change in perception and approach can create a big change in results. A slight edge makes all the difference in the world.

Don’t make your audience dig for the value they’ll get from you. Sure, they might be able to figure it out by your statements about how great your product is. But why not make what’s in it for them obvious?

Edging Out the Competition

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Thousands of new businesses will open in the coming months. There will be really good ones, really bad ones and everything in between.

What can you do to outmaneuver your ever-expanding number of competitors?

How will you establish your uniqueness in the market?

What makes you more attractive to your chosen audience? How can you build on that foundation?

A.) Do you have a specialty? A very sharply-defined expertise or niche? You may or may know this, but specialists tend to be able to charge higher fees than generalists in any given field. Think brain surgeons versus general practitioners.

It’s also easier to get noticed and establish yourself as an authority in a small corner of any industry, rather than compete with everyone else.

B.) Do you possess a rare certification? Have you worked with a famous client who got outstanding results? Do you have a pile of testimonials from clients who will sing your praises?

If any of those distinctions apply to you, put that information in the foreground.

C.) What activities are you doing that others are not doing? Where are you available that your peers can’t reach? What can you add to your repertoire to take the strategic advantage?

D.) What are you willing to do that none of your colleagues has the guts to try? What ways can you think of to differentiate yourself from the pack?

E.) What special ways are you touching and helping people? Society? The world?

F.) Is there an unusual guarantee that you offer to your clients? Specific results you basically promise that they will experience?

Don’t take for granted that would-be clients know these things. Tell them!

If others make the same claims about themselves truthfully, you have some more work to do to find your unique value proposition (UVP).

If your peers could make the same statements, but don’t, you can preempt them and take ownership of those claims. Be the first, and everyone else becomes a copy-cat.

What is the biggest, boldest claim about your services that you can honestly make? Say it!

The idea that you should “under-promise and over-deliver” is another myth that can cause considerable damage if you believe it. There is no question about over-delivering – you should always do that. The problem lies in under-promising.

Under-promising can be suicidal for your business. Imagine a dentist who advertises “Your teeth will probably be fairly clean when I’m finished,” because he wants to under-promise. Who would ever set up an appointment with that dentist? No one will find out how amazing the final delivery is; they will visit the dentist who guarantees that his patients’ teeth will be sparkling white and healthy.

That only makes sense. Under-promising sets a low expectation, which makes the over-delivery all the more pronounced. The hope is to surprise and delight the customer. But, weak promises will keep a customer from ever considering the purchase.

Make the strongest claims you can make. Otherwise you end up blending in with the competition. A reliable way to secure a steady flow of the type of clients you want to work with is to be great at something (the very best if at all possible) and make sure as many people in your target audience know about it.

 

Death of the Web?

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In August 2010, Wired Magazine published an article entitled The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet. The authors describe the dramatic change in the way people use the internet compared to how it’s been used in the past 15 years.

“Sure, we’ll always have Web pages,” Chris Anderson says. “We still have postcards and telegrams, don’t we?”

But as technology evolves and our use of it adapts, the traditional ways businesses have used the internet to build their brands and expand their influence will no longer be effective to the same degree. What worked yesterday simply will not work tomorrow. You may have noticed that downward trend is already taking impacting your online efforts.

Take a quick mental inventory of the time you’ve spent online lately. What are some of the traits you notice? Avalanches of information, often conflicting other sources. Mediocre content quality. Spam and scams. Wild pitch fests.

And everyone is an “expert,” even if they’re not.

Do you remember high school economics class? One of the first concepts you learn is supply and demand. As the supply of anything increases, its value decreases. On the internet, we’ve pretty much reached the maximum capacity for information demand, but the supply continues to grow exponentially.

So, you see the two causes for the general decline of perceived value of online information: 1) the low quality of the majority of content and 2) the super-abundance and ease of access.

On some level, everyone over the age of 16 senses this deterioration.

Seth Godin, one of the most popular marketing minds in the world recently wrote in his blog:

“…Prepare for a continuous erosion of what you pay for digital content, at the same time we’ll see a sticky and upward trend for what you might be charged for the… the scarce or custom.”

The world wide web is increasingly becoming a content flea market, so much so that internet giants like Yahoo and AOL are struggling with their current business models.

Don’t misunderstand. Although it seems contradictory, the internet is more important than ever. The rules are changing, and you will have to modify your online initiatives to take full advantage.

Counteract This Trend

To overcome the quality erosion of online information, you absolutely must offer something unique and indisputably valuable. You also have to be able to successfully deliver it to your core audience, the people who can most benefit from what you have to offer. Exclusivity can also protect the perception of high worth around your content.

Unique – It’s cliché, but you have to be yourself. Do the hard work of getting to know yourself and defining your Unique Value Proposition (UVP). Then you have to get the message out.

A large percentage of your peers heavily model themselves and their business after someone they admire. Modeling makes sense – up to a point. But imitation is a problem.

Legendary adman Bruce Barton notes that everyone possesses a “single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature.” Nurture that spark instead of copying someone else’s.

Not only do you have to have a one-of-a-kind persona, you have do conduct business in a way that differs from your competitors.

  • What can you do that others can’t or won’t do?
  • What do your clients experience while working with you that no one else can claim to provide?
  • How can you reach your audience in a way that the competition doesn’t?

Valuable – Everything you do should be impressive. Your personal brand and your reputation depend on showing yourself to be someone who improves the lives of others, not a peddler trying to sell stuff. (People love to buy, but they hate to be sold.)

Value starts with understanding what your target audience wants and needs, then helping them attain those things. A hefty percentage of people online are openly egocentric and their efforts online revolve around trying to suck money out of their customers’ wallets.

Quite a few businesses, entrepreneurs and service providers adhere to an online strategy that emphasizes quantity over quality. The more pages you have on your website, the more visible it becomes to search engines. More articles on more directories put you in front of more potential clients. Blogging every day will keep readers from forgetting about you and help you stay relevant…

That’s a lot of pressure! Placing so much attention to creating large quantities of content makes it difficult to make each piece shine. All of the information you make available to clients and prospects is a reflection of who you are and what you’re about. If your content is highly-visible but poorly crafted or boring, what have you accomplished? Not much more than demonstrating to more people that you’re nothing special. The last thing you want to be is average (or worse).

Search engine optimization (SEO) is another facet of your promotional efforts that can be tricky. Do you write to be attractive to search engines or to have the biggest impact on your readers?

Of course, you want to rank well in search rankings. There are benefits to being on Google’s first page. But, again, if you spend your effort to please the algorithms search engines use (which are constantly changing), you can lose out on opportunities to communicate more powerfully with your audience.

Focus on value. Remember that quality trumps quantity every day of the week

Exclusive – You are unique and valuable. You are not a commodity. Being too available decreases your sense of worth. Exclusivity gives the impression that your content and services are even more valuable. Make potential clients qualify themselves through opt-ins, purchases or other requirements.

Making some of your material available only to qualified individuals heightens the value and significance of that material.

The same is true for making some of your content or products only available in physical copies rather than electronic form. That increases your fulfillment costs, but that is part of what makes going offline work. It feels more expensive. Your prestige factor increases when your readers and listeners know that you’re “putting your money where your mouth is.” (This will also force you to deliver high-level quality because it costs you time and money to produce these items.)

Examples:

  • books
  • CDs
  • DVDs
  • print newsletter (free, paid or bundled with another service or product)
  • columns in print magazines

This distinguishes you from nearly all of your competitors and everyone else online. Rarity increases actual consumption of your content. Your teachings have little effect if they never enter your clients’ brains and get put to use.

Exclusivity builds a sense of belonging and entitlement. The effect creates a formidable emotional and intellectual bond between your audience and you, even while they’re forgetting everyone else.