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How to Design a Unique Selling Proposition

A Unique Selling Proposition also referred to as your Slogan or Advertising Tagline is your description of HOW your (UVP) will be found so BENEFICIAL that it is the obvious choice
  • A good “Slogan” conveys the Benefit your product offers in a memorable way while the What you do may be implied or directly included.
Successful Unique Selling Propositions evoke strong emotions or desires which may be fun, laughter, fear, control, sense of duty, performance, prestige, restoration, a desire to be unique and others. See if you can identify which emotions and desires the Brands below were targeting with these memorable slogan examples.

 

50 of the Most Influential Taglines

  1. “A diamond is forever” – DeBeers, 1948
  2. “Be all you can be” – The US Army, 1981
  3. “Because I’m worth it” – L’Oreal, 1967
  4. “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner” – National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, 1980’s
  5. “Betcha can’t eat just one” – Lays, 1981
  6. “Breakfast of Champions” – Wheaties, 1930
  7. “Calgon, take me away” – Calgon, 1970
  8. “Can you hear me now” – Verizon, 2002
  9. “Don’t get mad. Get GLAD” – Glad 1980’s
  10. “Don’t leave home without it” – American Express, 1975
  11. “Double your pleasure, double your fun” – Wrigley’s Doublemint, 1959
  12. “Eat more chickn’ ” – Chick-fil-A, 1994
  13. “Finger lickin’ good” – KFC, 1952
  14. “Fly the friendly skies” – United Airlines, 1966
  15. “Get more” – T-Mobile, 2005
  16. “Got milk” – California Milk Processor Board, 1993
  17. “Have a Coke and a smile” – Coca Cola, 1979
  18. “Have it your way” – Burger King, 1973
  19. “Hey, Mikey…He likes it! – Life Cereal, 1972
  20. “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” – Alka Seltzer, 1966
  21. “It keeps going, and going, and going” – Energizer Batteries 1989
  22. “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking” – Timex, 1950’s
  23. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” – LifeCall, 1990
  24. “Just Do It” – Nike, 1988
  25. “Let your fingers do the walking” – Yellow Pages, 1964
  26. “Look Ma, no cavities!” – Crest Toothpaste, 1958
  27. “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands” M&M’s 1950’s
  28. “Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?” – Grey Poupon, 1980
  29. “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin” – Charmin, 1964
  30. “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is” – Alka Seltzer, 1953
  31. “Reach out and touch someone” – AT&T, 1979
  32. “Share the Fantasy” – Chanel No. 5, 1979
  33. “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” – Kellog’s Rice Krispies, 1932
  34. “The few, the proud, the Marines” – U.S. Marines, 1991
  35. “The happiest place on earth” – Disneyland 1960’s
  36. “The other white meat” – National Pork Board, 1986
  37. “The quicker picker-uper“ – Bounty, 1991
  38. The Ultimate Driving Machine”, 1975
  39. “The UnCola” – 7UP, 1973
  40. “They’re grrreat!” – Kellog’s Frosted Flakes
  41. “Think different” – Apple, 1990’s
  42. “Think outside the box” – Apple, 1990’s
  43. “Think small” – Volkswagen, 1959
  44. “We bring good things to life” – GE, 1981
  45. “We try harder” – Avis, 1962
  46. “When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight” – FedEx, 1982
  47. “When you care enough to send the very best” – Halmark, 1934
  48. “Where’s the beef” – Wendy’s, 1984
  49. “With a name like Smucker’s, It has to be good” – Smucker’s, 1962
  50. “You’re in good hands” – Allstate, 1950’s
Remember in each of these Unique Selling Proposition examples the focus is on a key Benefit of the product or service. Now thinking about your product or service consider the personality of your business and write some taglines that describe the benefits your customer will experience. Next, share your Advertising Tagline examples with as many people as possible to see if there is a consensus as to which one is most commonly favored.
Then you are ready to use your Unique Selling Proposition aka Company Tagline or Slogan on your Marketing Collateral and share with your Website Designer.
Would you like to learn more about Creating Competitive Advantage thru the process of developing a Unique Value Proposition?
Check out this Resource: How to Create Competitive Advantage for Small Business Growth
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How to Establish a Marketing Budget

How Important is establishing a Marketing Budget?

Often times small business owners overlook the importance of investing in a small business local marketing budget thinking it is an unnecessary expense. Or in some cases, a business owner buys some Local Advertising but did not have the results they were hoping for and so feeling defeated by the bad experience they give up on the whole idea of Marketing.
Whether realized or not each new customer relationship involves a Cost of Acquisition. When a small business does not invest in marketing and several hours, days or weeks go by before the next customer there is a real expense to that time.
If for example you provide a service, say pressure cleaning, and the average cost of that service is $1,500.00 and you have a week where you have 3 idle days you would at a minimum take the cost of overhead, say $50 a day for a small home based business, plus your minimum necessary salary to meet your personal needs, say $200 a day and multiply that by the three idle days for a Cost of Acquisition of $750. If instead, that same business owner had, for example, the month before proactively invested $150 in a Direct Mail campaign to New Homeowners and picked up just 1 customer from his investment and that job filled the 3-day gap he would have $1,350 in additional income that week. Plus now he has an additional customer who may refer even more business.
Like every part of your business, the process of Marketing which includes a Marketing Budget should yield a beneficial return on investment that leads to growth.
Here I’ll review some best practices to help ensure your investment in a Marketing Budget leads to real growth and a good return on investment.
Step 1. Before establishing a Marketing Budget you should create a Marketing Plan. A Marketing Plan helps you establish the framework and evolving process necessary to continually reduce your Cost of Acquisition over time as you find the best Marketing Channels for Small Business Local Marketing growth.
Did you know that approximately 90% of small business owners don’t use a Marketing Plan?
And that those who do grow at 2 – 3 X greater rates.
Key Resource:

The Can Do Marketing Plan

– You’ll be done in as little as 35 Minutes

How to Establish a Marketing Budget

Commonly Small Business Owners ask the question how much should I spend on Marketing?
This depends on your current Condition and Goals.
The Deloitte CMO Survey Results shown below indicated a Marketing Budget by industry that most industries spend between 8% and 15% of Gross Sales on Marketing.

How to Establish a Marketing Budget for Local Marketing in Port St Lucie Stuart and Vero Beach

Based upon experience here is a chart that can help you consider your current Condition when deciding how much to allocate to a Marketing Budget.
CONDITION SEEKING ALLOCATE
Start Up or Stagnant Growth Activation 12% – 15%
Emerging or Expansion Aggressive Growth 10% – 12%
Established Steady Growth 8% – 10%
Mature Market Leader Continued Position 4% – 8%
Gross Sales

Last 12 Months

 Condition/Goal % Annual Budget / 12 Monthly Budget
X = =
The key is to start somewhere even if that is 4% and your monthly budget is $250 – $300.
To learn more about which Advertising and Marketing channels to consider checking out this Resource: The best Marketing Channels for Small Business Local Marketing growth.

Tracking your Marketing Investment

One of the most important parts of any good Marketing Plan and Marketing Budget is your ability to measure your Return on Investment.
To accomplish this you will want to have measurement tools in place that track the progress of your Direct Marketing campaigns like a New Mover Welcome Service or your Website Marketing. While this can start out as simple as using a form to keep hand written track of where customer’s heard about your business to track your Response Rate and later gross sales such a process is not nearly as accurate or effective as when you use tools like Call Tracking with unique phone numbers for each Marketing Channel or Campaign or Website Traffic and Conversion Tracking. This is partly because you and or your staff will sometimes forget to ask and partly because customers will not always remember where they initially gathered your phone number from or what source referred them to your website.

When to Modify your Marketing Budget

A Marketing Plan involves Direction, Design, Interaction, and Discovery which is the measurement of what is working. After reviewing your Marketing Budget consider which Channels have returned the best Return on Investment and when appropriate direct a larger percentage of your Marketing Budget toward those campaigns or efforts.
The exception to this rule is in cases where you are making a mid to long term investment in content development for your website. While this strategy may in the short term produce a lower Return on Investment than say an immediate direct response campaign like New Mover Direct Mail your investment will pay off to a greater and greater degree as time passes and more and more people find your business online.
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How to Create Competitive Advantage for Small Business Growth

What is Competitive Advantage?

Competitive Advantage occurs when you develop a Unique Value Proposition, the Why we Exist (Our Purpose) combined with the Values, Personality, Cultural and Operational Approach we employ to deliver our Products & Services in a way Customers find uniquely valuable and the obvious choice.

Developing a Unique Value Proposition involves more than just being different.

Creating Competitive Advantage is a discipline, a habit of never ending growth thru the continual improvement of your Unique Value Proposition, that begins with the mindset of the business owner or operator. The cornerstone of the most successful mindset is a purpose founded in the joy of serving others and a fascination with understanding how your team can, thru the delivery of your products and services, impact the lives of people in a positive manner.

4 Key considerations of a Unique Value Proposition that creates Competitive Advantage

People / Product / Process / Promotion

Here are three Case Study examples of what happens when leadership focuses on creating the Competitive Advantage of a Relationship based Culture focused on serving others.

#1  Chick-Fil-A is Quick Serve Restaurant selling Chicken Sandwiches

Are their sandwiches better than say, Zaxby’s, who makes a quite tasty chicken sandwich, or any of 8 other Quick Serve Restaurants that sell Chicken as a primary item?

And why is Chick-Fil-A so successful without selling burgers when most QSR’s who sell burgers also sell Chicken Sandwiches?

How is it that Chick-Fil-A has less menu selection, is open fewer days per week (only 6) and yet they are by far #1 of all the QSR’s?

A Relationship focused Culture is the Competitive Advantage which makes them by far the #1 most profitable per unit fast food chain with average profit per unit at 310k in only 6 days of weekly operations.

When compared to #2 McDonalds Chick-Fil-A makes 25 – 29% more sales and profit per unit per day.

And the operators are completely off on Sundays = more FREE TIME

Source Facts: click: Top 50 QSR Report

#2  Then there is the Story of Southwest Airlines who, while among an industry plagued with Bankruptcies and year over year losses of 2 Billion dollars from legacy carriers like American Airlines and others, have managed to remain profitable each and every year of its 41 years of existence.

So is value price the only differentiator that makes Southwest so Popular?

Or could it be their well-articulated shared purpose that has been fully embraced by the Southwest family?  Watch the Video below to see what you think.

Friendly (Relationship Focused)

Here’s an example of how Southwest creates Fun Memorable Experiences

 

#3  Then there is Delta who recognized it had gotten away from founding principles of Culture and so while coming out of Bankruptcy court in 2007 they embarked on a 4 year turnaround focusing on developing Culture as a Competitive Advantage leading them to being ranked as the 10th most profitable airline in 2014.

 

It was thru aligning Strategy, Leadership and Team Culture that they were able to rebuild a foundation for Success.

See the Ted Talk

Why creating Competitive Advantage leads to faster Growth

Creating a Unique Value Proposition that leads to Competitive Advantage means that your business is benefiting the people in the community in the best possible manner. A goal worthy of pursuit. It also means you are likely becoming highly effective at getting the right people on your team and becoming increasingly effective at transferring your skill sets to the leaders among your team which is an executive level skill known as Transformative Leadership.

Without thinking about Competitive Advantage many small business owners and operators don’t see the benefits of their hard work. Instead, they fall into the mindset trap that the only way to differentiate their business is to get into a coupon war over price, which leads to a slow agonizing profit death and the eventual death of the business. In contrast focusing on the steps necessary to differentiate your business based on performance or customer intimacy can have a positive effect for everyone concerned.

The ability to differentiate your local small business thru Competitive Advantage opens the door for your business to grow while you also have more free time to spend with your family.

How to Create and Maintain Competitive Advantage

The 2 most important questions to creating a Unique Value Proposition are;

  • In priority order what specifically are the needs and wants of my Customer?
  • Are you able to meet those needs in a significantly more effective way than any other local small business competitor?

Understanding the needs and wants of your customers will help you define which Value Disciplines to pursue first. If you are uncertain look for Survey Reports conducted by Trade Associations in your Industry. For a list of Trade Associations visit our Resource: Small Business Trade Associations

Next, as a part of your Marketing Plan consider the four key parts of your Value Proposition, people, product, process, and promotion. Here are a few questions that will help you define the Value Disciplines to pursue;

  • How can we consistently get the right people on the team and help them grow?
  • Do we focus our efforts on delivering a product or service that aligns best with my customer’s needs and wants?
  • How can the processes we use provide the highest level of performance?
  • What is the best way to help the people in our community become aware of our products and services and how it benefits them?

Selecting Value Disciplines for Competitive Advantage

The following Guide will further help you consider your Value Disciplines to build a growth strategy and Competitive Advantage.

Process

  • Cheaper
  • More Convenient
  • More Efficient

Process Leaders

MORE EFFICIENT

“Leaders in Operational Excellence”

Process Leader Factory

Raises the bar of competition thru increasing Efficiency,

Systems / Process / Supply Chains

Sets Standards for:

  • Minimal Cost
  • Minimal Waste
  • Maximum Convenience

Organizationally:

  • Highly Standardized and Centralized Operations with tough penalties to eliminate waste

Process - eliminating waste

Example:  Motel 6

Process - Motel 6

Value Proposition
“Clean comfortable rooms at the lowest price of any chain”

= Quality & Value

Product

  • Better Technology
  • More Features
  • Cooler Style
  • Superior Quality

Product Leaders

BEST PRODUCT

“Distinctive & Superior Product”

 

Pricing not focused on bargain

Service may not be the best but these factors are compensated for by performance or features of product itself

Raises the bar of competition by constantly increasing product Performance,

Sets Standards for:

  • Technology, Style, Features, Speed
  • Imagination, Invention, Innovation
  • Heavy investments in R&D & new Market Exploration

Organizationally:

  • Loose, Flexible, Fluid & quickly adaptable to new product initiatives
  • Rewards rare product success without punishing for the many failed attempts that are necessary to achieve rare success
  • Engineering is #1 even if Cost or Service is Secondary

 

Example:  BMW

 

BM-W is No 1

Value Proposition
“The Ultimate Driving Machine”

Customer Intimacy

  • Better Service
  • We Listen
  • Anticipate Needs & Wants
  • Tailored Solutions

Customer Intimacy Leaders

SERVICE/WHAT THEY WANT

“Outstanding Service”

“Providing the Best Solution Tailored to each customer’s Unique Needs”

Pricing not focused on bargain

Performance may not be the best, nor will product be most distinctive or cutting edge but these factors are compensated for by the Superior Service the Customer Intimacy Leader uses to anticipate, understand and fully meet the needs of each carefully selected customer.

Ultimate Goal: To create a lifelong bond with customer

 

Raises the bar of competition by giving customer all they want

Sets Standards for:

  • Service
  • Convenience
  • Customer Intimacy

Organizationally:

  • An extreme level of delegation and decentralization so decisions are always made by employee who is close to the customer.
  • Requires implementation of information systems that keep track of each customer’s unique needs and preferences

Custom Systems for Competitive Advantage

 

Example:  Ritz Carlton

Value Proposition
“A place where the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission.  We pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm refined yet relaxed ambiance.  The Ritz Carlton Experience enlivens the senses, instills well being and fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.”

= Quality & Value

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How Online Review Management can grow Small Business Sales by up to 18%

Review Management is one of the most overlooked and yet simplest ways to grow your business Sales by 9% up to 18%.

According to a report by Harvard Business School professor, Michael Luca,  Privately owned restaurant’s sales grew by 5% for each star rating acquired on Yelp.

According to a report by Econsultancy improved reputation accounted for Sales growth of 9-18%. Share on X

Why is a Reputation Management tool necessary?

First, it’s important to understand that manually entering reviews does not give you Google Review credit.  This means Google does not recognize it as a Review but rather sees it as content. Reviews are one of the ranking signals Google looks for when assigning a website’s Ranking value.

Second, the manual process of requesting and hoping customers post a review to Google or one of your Social Sites is not a practical process as the vast majority of customers will forget.

Here’s why is a Review Management Tool considered one of the best low cost and simplest Marketing strategies:

To briefly summarize a good Reputation Management Tool will:

  • automate the process of asking for reviews thereby increasing your success rate by 5 X or more

  • allow you to first gauge Customer Intent so you may be able to Recover if a customer is unhappy before they leave a review online

  • direct customers to review sites that matter to you, including niche industry sites

  • give your website’s Google listing a search engine ranking boost because the tool streams your reviews to your website and social media sites in “rich snippet markup” format

To learn specifics of how Google Search Rankings work and how much a Review Marketing Tool can boost your reputation and sales check out this short informative video.

Review Management_Explainer Video

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