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  • What Is Unique Selling Proposition (USP): A Detailed Guide

    What Is Unique Selling Proposition (USP): A Detailed Guide

    Every customer looks for a reason why he should choose that specific product and not the others lying on the same shelf.

    This reason is the key to making the offering different and stand out of the crowd, especially when the offering is similar to those offered by the competitors.

    This is the unique selling proposition (USP) in marketing.

    What Is Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

    A unique selling proposition (also referred to as unique selling point or just USP) is a unique benefit, feature, or characteristic of an offering which makes it unique from rest of the competing brands in the market and makes it more appealing to the customers.

    Two key phrases that should be noted in this definition of USP are –

    • Unique from the rest of the competing brands: A USP should be a benefit which makes the offering unique from others.
    • Makes it more appealing: It should also be something which actually makes customers choose this offering over others. Just a normal differentiation which doesn’t matter to the customers doesn’t count as a USP.
    unique selling proposition

    Importance of USP

    • Answers the question of ‘what’s in for me?’: The USP translates the product features into benefits and makes the customer get an answer to what’s in there for him.
    • Forms the base of Marketing: USP usually forms the base on which the entire marketing communication depends. In short, the company tries to sell the brand or the offering based on its USP.
    • Make Product Stand out of the Competition: The USP gives a reason for customers to buy the offered product and not to buy the competitors’ products.

    Features Of A USP

    The biggest factor that makes an offering’s selling proposition its unique selling proposition is its distinctiveness. Distinctiveness means this benefit is limited to the specified offering and isn’t provided by any of the competitors. Besides this, here are two very important characteristics of a USP –

    • Assertive: The USP should be assertive enough to make a case against competing offerings. Assertiveness is often supported by research, stats, and/or facts.
    • Valuable: USP is always some benefit which the customers believe to be valuable and worthy enough to go away with the opportunity cost.

    Types Of USP

    Different offerings come with different USPs but most of these can be categorized into these three types –

    • Feature-Based: Unique product features like price, quantity, and/or quality give enough reason for the customers to choose an offering over the competing ones.
    • Benefit-Based: Some products focus more on providing specific benefits, which others don’t. For example, DuckDuckGo is a search engine which takes utmost care of user privacy and hence is a small yet popular competitor to Google.
    • Positioning-Based: Positioning is the unique space a brand occupies in the brains of the customers. It could be lifestyle-based (like Marlboro), problem-solver-based (like Tide) and or need/want/luxury based (like DeBeers).

    How To Develop A USP?

    Some are lucky enough to develop a product with a unique benefit that’s different from almost all the products in the market.

    But many aren’t this lucky.

    Moreover, with time, market changes, customers’ preferences change and there comes a need for the existing players to change the USP as well.

    Here’s a process of how to find and develop a USP for a product.

    Find The USP

    Finding a USP isn’t an easy task. It involves heavy research on what’s actually needed but not offered well in the market.

    It starts with understanding the target market, followed by competitor analysis, and ends with developing a competitor advantage.

    • Understand the target market: A USP is developed to fulfil one of the repressed needs of the target market. These needs could be hesitation to pay a lot for service, wishing to do something remotely, or not buying three different products just to do one task, etc.
    • Analyse the competition: A selling proposition which isn’t unique doesn’t actually count as a unique selling proposition. Hence, it’s important to analyse the competition before deciding on a USP.
    • Develop A Competitive Advantage: Once the market and competition are analysed, a competitive advantage is developed, which makes the offering to be perceived as superior to the other competitors.

    Test and Refine Your USP

    Usually, the initial ideas of what a unique selling proposition could be aren’t always right. One needs to test this hypothesis for its credibility. This is how it is done.

    • Choose a focus group: A focus group is a small but demographically diverse group selected to validate the hypothesis of the planned USP(s).
    • Launch and market to the focus group: The product’s marketing campaign is tested on the focus group to analyse their response and get feedback. If there’s more than one test campaign, more than one focus group is used for the same.

    Communicate Your USP

    The feedback and response lead to finding the USP that will make the offering stand out. Once done, the next step involves developing a 360° marketing campaign which stems from the USP.

    • Develop a brand personality: The USP forms the base a brand builds its personality on. Woodland has a personality of adventurous and ruggedness because of its tough and long-lasting products which fit perfectly for adventures.
    • Develop marketing communications messages around USP: Since the product sells because of its USP, this benefit usually forms the base around which almost all of the marketing communications revolve.

    Unique selling proposition examples

    While almost every offering has its own unique selling proposition, here are some notable examples of USPs of famous companies.

    FedEx Corporation

    The World on Time

    FedEx, through this slogan and its work, gives a reassurance to its customers that it takes the job seriously and makes sure that the package reaches wherever it belongs on time, no matter what place in the world.

    This a perfect example of a benefit-based unique selling point.

    M&M

    The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand.

    M&M sells because it is hugely different from its competitor brands. Unlike other offerings, M&M has a sugar coating which prevents it from melting. Hence, the tagline.

    M&M is a perfect example of a feature-based unique selling proposition.

    DeBeers

    A diamond is forever.

    DeBeers is known for its positioning-based USP. The company sells diamonds which are considered to be necessary for weddings. The company marketed them as a symbol of eternal love, which is unbreakable.

    Go On, Tell Us What You Think!

    Did we miss something? Come on! Tell us what you think about our article on unique selling proposition in the comments section.

  • Patanjali Case Study – How Baba Ramdev Built a Multi Billion Dollar Brand

    Patanjali Case Study – How Baba Ramdev Built a Multi Billion Dollar Brand

    Seems like putting a meditating old Baba on the top of your brand name isn’t good enough to guarantee that your brand is herbal. Patanjali has taken this to a new level with their brand ambassador, a real yoga guru, Baba Ramdev. Patanjali, or as Forbes has labelled it – India’s Body Shop, has taken over the markets with a storm posing a real threat to the existing market leaders like Colgate, Unilever, Nestle, and GlaxoSmithKline.

    But what could be the reason behind such popularity and the ever-increasing demand of Patanjali?

    Patanjali Success Study

    All the success, the popularity, and the goodwill can be credited to something we refer to as the “Incidental Branding”.

    The branding wasn’t accidental. It was well planned. But there were a lot of incidents that shaped the brand personality and that too happened before its formation. The brand ambassador (who surprisingly has no equity in the business) is the reason the ‘brand’ happened. Mind it that I’m referring to the brand and not the business. Hence Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali.

    But how a holy man, who doesn’t even know the basic marketing strategies, who did nothing but yoga all his life, could make all the market leaders sweat?

    Reason Behind Patanjali’s Success

    It all started in 2002 when Baba Ramdev’s mass yoga camps telecasted through the leading spiritual channels (which were the new trend then) across the country. These camps, besides being free yoga classes for the television viewers, built a big brand for Baba Ramdev and placed him in a positive light as a person you can trust. These yoga camps also somehow kindled a new interest in healthy exercises and Ayur Veda.

    What next? Baba was in the limelight as he became a part of many political as well as non-political (and rather silly) controversies like cure of Cancer, AIDS, and homosexuality by yoga. His argument for the replacement of sex education in schools with yoga education and his speeches that stated western medicine companies as the con was a part of hundreds of controversies he was a part of.

    Between all this, Patanjali was born in 2006. Or rather, as researchers say, was being planned from 2003 itself. Patanjali is actually managed by Acharya Balkrishna (Ramdev’s partner since 1995). The products were initially marketed and promoted during the yoga camps (which has been attended by around 20 crores, or almost a sixth of the Indian population till now). Since the yoga classes were conducted for free, people were convinced that the Baba was not in it for the money (this trick always work)

    Baba Ramdev popularity

    Patanjali Yogpeeth was a set up in Haridwar; a Hindu pilgrimage site, Baba wore saffron, propagated swadeshi psyche, and the main focus was on Yoga and Ayurvedic medicines. The Patanjali brand was set, years prior to the foundation of the actual FMCG Company. The key player here was a simple business whose brand identity and brand image were in line. Unlike other herbal brands, it had its brand ambassador as a real-life yoga guru who preached yoga and Ayurveda all his life and hence their brand identity and brand image was in the same line. Celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan did promote herbal brands like Dabur, but it was hard for people to associate a film star with a herbal brand.

    Since the brand was directly associated with the Baba, all his network which is –
    • 577,000 Twitter Followers
    • 53,248 Subscribers with 13,191,201 Video Views on YouTube
    • 6936960 likes on Facebook with 408359 talking about Baba

    Baba Ramdev on Social Media
    Baba Ramdev on Social Media

    This, being a lot more than his competitor companies, was used to promote the products.

    Baba Ramdev also had good support from the BJP government as they always had his back during the time of controversies. He was also called to lead the world yoga day celebration on 21st June 2015 by the prime minister himself.

    Luck can do wonders sometimes, but when used with brains. Baba Ramdev was successful in making a ₹3000 crore company just by his own name. But this could backfire on him as well.  His every action, every social media post, every word he speaks has been associated with the brand and hence Baba Brand has to be a bit more cautious in everything he does, speak, eat, type, or wear.

    Go On, Tell Us What You Think!

    Did we miss something?  Come on! Tell us what you think of this article about the Reason behind Patanjali’s success (Patanjali Case Study) in the comment section.