Make Your Brand Stand Out, Even if it’s Boring

2 min read
Mar 12, 2015 1:58:00 PM

Do you ever feel like you are one in a million – but not in a good way? Does your business compete with dozens or even hundreds of other businesses that seem to provide exactly the same service? Or, maybe you don’t have a lot of competition, but the product or service that you offer isn’t that exciting.

How can a business that sells paper, for example, hope to capture the imaginations of their intended audience? What’s so special about paper, anyway? Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? What’s so special about your product? If you can answer that question, then you’re halfway there.
 

A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is the thing that makes you stand out from the competition. Maybe you are the only paper company that produces custom sizes. Maybe you deliver. Or, maybe your customer service is second to none. This is your USP, the differentiator that will make your brand stand out – so find it and know it well.

When customers need a service or product, they want to be able to make a decision quickly and easily. So, if you differentiate yourself from your competitors, you are making it that much easier for consumers to make a choice – and consumers like that.

But what if you don’t have a USP? What if you offer exactly the same paper as the company down the street? Here’s a clever trick: find something that you all have in common, but that hasn’t been used by your competitors in their advertising.

Case in point: There is a famous story in the advertising industry in which an ad-man was touring the brewery of one of his clients. He noticed that the beer bottles were cleaned using steam. When he remarked on it to the client, the beer maker told him not to use it in the advertising because everyone in the industry did it. The clever marketer replied, “Maybe, but I had never heard of it before, and neither has any of the beer-drinking public.” He went on to create a successful ad campaign for his client that advertised his beer as “so pure the bottles are washed in live steam.”

An effective USP can mean the difference between a booming list of loyal customers and a dwindling client. Find what differentiates you from your competition and use it to elevate your marketing efforts. Or, if there’s nothing unique about your product, sell on something that no one else has thought to highlight. Be resourceful and it’ll get you noticed! No one can do it quite like you can, after all.

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