Your Unique Selling Proposition – Win More Customers by Being the Cheapest, Easiest, or Fastest
Companies looking for new customers need to consider how they want to sell and who they want to sell to. Whether you’re starting a new business or seeking to transform your current one, making conscious decisions on the way you present your company will help determine who becomes your customers. Is your product/service easier to market as the cheapest option? The fastest option? How can you differentiate your company in a meaningful way? Different factors matter to different customers and what you choose to emphasize will help determine the type of customers you receive.
When Price Matters Most
Depending on what you are selling, price may be the most important factor in whether customers decide to buy from you. Gasoline is something that people shop for by price. Why buy the same 10 gallons of
Customers shop by price for gasoline
87 octane gas here when a customer can go a few blocks and buy it for 5 cents cheaper which saves them 50 cents overall? The same is true for mattresses. For many years companies tried to beat each other’s prices which drove their profit margins lower and lower. Now many mattress companies rebrand or have private label versions of the mattresses they sell to different distributors so it’s nearly impossible to compare prices.
As a business owner, you have to determine if your market is driven by price and if you are willing to sell based on price.
Price might be the deciding factor for your customers when there is no real discernible difference between one product/service and another. For instance, you might own a lawn care service. And though you try to educate your customers on why your service is better than your competitors, some customers are just going to want to know how often you come and how much you charge because, in their minds there is no difference between the service you provide versus your competitor. So even if there is a difference in your offering, a customer might not understand the difference or care. It is up to you to decide if price-conscious customers are what you want to focus on.
When Convenience Matters Most
The point of a convenience store is that it’s right there when you need it. Sometimes people go searching specifically for a 7-11 but most of the time, if you need drinks for a road trip or ice for a party, you go to the closest store. Being convenient can be a function of where you have your physical stores or offices, what your hours are, etc. If someone uses Google to find a product and you’re website is ranked highly for that product name, they’ll find your site (which is convenient to both you and the customer). So using pay per click advertising like Google Adwords and/or hiring an SEO company to help your site rank highly will make your online presence more convenient for customers who value convenience.
And convenience also means making the transaction simple – having a shopping cart that is easy to navigate, having a sales process that is simple for your customers to understand, having a call to action that is clear, etc. If convenience-oriented customers are the type of customers you want, your site is going to need to be easily found and easily navigated.
When Response and Delivery Time Matter Most
Some customers are willing to pay a premium, if you can provide what they need right now. They are focused on time – the time it takes to get someone to respond to their inquiry, the time it takes for the product to be delivered, etc. If you sell the right product but it’s currently out of stock, you’ve lost the sale. Or if you sell a service but you can’t meet with the customer within their time frame, you’ve lost the sale. Being quick and nimble is what will resonate with these customers.
Service-based businesses and companies that sell complex products need to be especially concerned with timeliness because the sales cycle is slower and customers are going to need more information and assistance as they consider their purchase.
Consider how many rings it takes for someone to answer your business phone. If a potential sale is on the other end of that call, it’s important that someone is there to answer. Are you responsive to requests for more information, for meetings, for catalogs, etc? Being able to respond and deliver quickly will win you these types of customers.
Or course one could argue that all customers want their transactions to be cheap, easy and fast. But rarely can a company deliver on all three. Focusing on one, appealing to those customers that value that factor, and doing it well will help you define your company in your market and win new customers.
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Your article makes me want to rethink my company’s focus, which is hardly a focus. Being good at one thing puts you ahead of most company’s who are bad at all three. Good thoughts, Alyssa.
I’ve been working on this one for years, and still haven’t quite figured it out. So, the progression continues, and I hope one of these days to establish the correct USP. I can say this, though; it probably won’t be price.