Discover Your Difference

Your key to small business marketing success: discover your difference and communicate this difference to your prospects.

clipped from blog.1429design.com Small Business Marketing : Differentiate! One of the biggest myths in small business marketing is that you have to spend alot of money in advertising. While there should be room in your marketing budget for appropriate ad buys, probably the #1 key to small business marketing success is this: Be Different Than Everyone Else! If your prospect can’t identify some specific way in which your firm is unique, they will default to the only thing they can measure - PRICE. Offering to simply exchange what you sell for a set price in return is one of the weakest marketing offers you can create. Price is a terrible place to compete. There will always be someone willing to go out of business faster than you. Drawing from some of Jantsch’s ideas, here’s how you can differentiate and dominate: Product Market Niche Solve a Problem Unique habit Guarantee Customer Service If you don’t already know what your points of differentiation are, then it’s time to STOP and discover them.

Does Your USP Work?

Perhaps rather than a Unique Selling Proposition you need a Decisive Power Point to separate your small business from your competition.

clipped from systematicdirectmarketing.com Why USPs Don’t Work   The USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is based on the assumption that if you can’t be better than the competition then being different will usually suffice. Finding your USP can be like the quest for the proverbial Holy Grail. You could end up spending inordinate amounts of money on research, product/service development and branding without ever really attaining a true USP. The quest to find ‘unique’ when ‘relevant’, ‘outstanding’ and ‘decisive’ are just as good can be frustrating and wasteful. DPPs - Decisive Power Points Right, back to the programme… I’d like you to ignore ‘unique’ and replace it with ‘decisive’. There’s an example of our DPP chart (high and to the right is where you want your benefit to be) on our site at http://www.debbiejenkins.com/academy-pics/DAY17-dpp-example.gif

What's Your Story?

Tell your unique story as part of your Unique Selling Proposition.

clipped from www.copyblogger.com Your Unique Story Proposition You’ve likely heard of the need for a “unique selling proposition” (USP) in order to be successful in business. In essence, a USP is something that you offer customers or clients that your competitors do not. Another way to think of your USP is as a “remarkable benefit.” In direct response copywriting, the USP runs throughout the sales letter. It’s the unique promise that is Start out by asking yourself a question. What is it that you offer customers or clients that your competitors do not? If you can’t see it immediately, don’t give up. Often there’s something there that you take for granted, but others would find quite remarkable. If you are a service provider, you can always simply create something unique as part of your offering.

Is the USP Dead?

In today's hyper-competitive market, is a Unique Selling Proposition good enough to separate you from your competition?

clipped from blog.mindvalleylabs.com Death of the Unique Selling Proposition As marketers, we always talk about the unique selling proposition. What benefits and features make my product so unique that it stands out in the marketplace? However, the market has become saturated. Today, the USP has become almost meaningless. How many products out there have the same features? Let’s take for example, shoes. From Nike, to Puma, to Adidas. All these shoes can make you jump higher… accelerate your athletic abilities…but what’s the big deal? How different can a shoelace be? Is there really a unique feature? That’s the first thing I learned when I joined advertising - that the USP is dead. We’re in a new capitalist era in which we are bombarded with new products and new businesses exploding everyday in a sea of competitors. The key here is to highlight and amplify the differences between products in the same niche. What are the alternatives to a dying USP?

Why Not Help Teach a Kid Marketing?

Reach out and give a college kid the opportunity to learn real world marketing. Marketing that's happening online.

clipped from www.tw3o.com Can College Teach It? At least once it’s all said and done, you’ll be to go out and get that great job with your degree in marketing! You’ll know exactly what to do, and bring in lots of sales! From those sales, you’ll make lots of money! Or will you Now, I’m not saying not to go to college. I am saying, study how to market on your own time as well…. especially if you are someone who wants to work for YOURSELF! Essentially, you are going to need to become a gorilla marketer. You are going to learn as you go. You are going to need to know your target market, and study the latest Internet technologies to be successful. You need to acquire lots of new information, and know where to get it. Be creative! Maybe you can blend ideas, use hybrid techniques. The truth is that your studying on the subject of marketing has really just begun.

Entrepreneurs vs. Corporate Marketers

WARNING: As a small business entrepreneur, this podcast will bore the hell out of you.

But, it's interesting to understand the unique advantage you have over larger businesses.

These guys don't even understand the difference between marketing and sales.

clipped from blog.futurelab.net Sales is from Mars, Marketing is from Venus - Podcast The relationship between Sales and Marketing at B2B companies is too often precarious and subject to change day by day. The problem is that Marketing and Sales play by different sets of rules. Sales are quota and bottom-line driven, where success can be easily measured through the number of closed deals. In Marketing, nebulous terms like 'impressions' and 'website traffic' are too often used to benchmark results. All too often, Marketing thinks it is exceeding its lead generation goals while at the same Sales is wondering why they aren't getting enough good leads. Download the full MP3: Sales is from Mars, Marketing is From Venus -- a CEO's Perspective.

What's Your Mission?

As a small business, your Mission defines your marketing and your business.

Do you have a "Mission"?

Or...

Some lame boiler-plate Mission Statement?

Big difference!

clipped from streetlessons.com Are you on a Mission? Ask most business experts and they’ll tell you your business should have a Mission Statement. However, being a difficult child, I think it’s more important to just have a mission. “Dean Hunt.com – Making Success Fun” Do you think it could be any clearer what my mission is? What I really believe in? Compare this to the nonsense that you would get from a random S&P 500 company: “We are a market-focused, process-centered organization that develops and delivers innovative solutions to our customers, consistently outperforms our peers, produces predictable earnings for our shareholders, and provides a dynamic and challenging environment for our employees.” If your business has a mission that you really believe in, that isn’t focused solely on earning wheelbarrows full of money, then you will find success beyond your wildest dreams.