Finding Your Unique Selling Position (USP) May be The Most Critical Activity for Your Success. Your advertising lives in a world of complexity and confusion. Consumers have so many choices in almost every product classification. When you're shopping for a service or product it's common to have even thousands of choices..

Think I'm crazy? Just search the Internet for everyday products and look at the number of search results. It's possible to have alternatives in the millions.

Isn't that how it should be? You're bound to like it if you're the consumer. But those of us who make a living marketing products and services will find it a challenge. What is a marketer to do in order to survive?

Your Advertising Must Set You Apart from Your Competitors. Your advertising must tell your prospect that you're different from the competition. In a meeting with a client the other day, we turned to the yellow pages for their product category and there was a vivid example of how NOT to do advertising.

There were pages upon pages of ads. They all had one thing in common. They were so much the same that you could have substituted one company name for another without changing the ad in the slightest.

My client found this depressing, but I was thrilled! Why? She had a great opportunity to differentiate her business. Whoever differentiates will win the business battle!

When there are no apparent differences customers will decide based on price. So what happens when customers are faced with hundreds of choices and dont see any difference between one business and another? The only thing left to compare is price, so that's how they make their choice. If you haven't shown that you're different, price will be the deciding factor for your customers too. That's not the best thing for you and your business, and this might surprise you, but it's not good for your customer either--especially if your value is best recognized by establishing a long-term relationship with the customer. Business you get because you have the best price will go somewhere else as soon as they find a lower price. You may be the fastest gun in the West. But no matter how fast you are, there's always someone faster. That's a dangerous game. It's much safer to differentiate.

You can command higher prices through differentiation. Companies who effectively differentiate themselves from their competitors can demand higher prices for their products or services. The lowest price is not always the winner. Think about this for a minute. You don't always buy the lowest price. Even if you're the world's biggest cheapskate you can differentiate between bruised and fresh vegetables and you'll pay the higher price for the fresh produce. Right?

Are your customers any different? No. Certainly, you must have a reasonable price, but if you have highlighted an important difference in your product or service, customers will pay extra to have that benefit.

So, your key to increased sales, happier customers and increased profits is to simply find the thing which makes you different from your competitors and make certain you're getting that message out in your advertising.

Marketing Products on our marketplace

The author, Craig Mecham, is the founder of of The Mecham Company The Mecham Company, a marketing consulting firm. With 25 years experience in Business to Business Marketing and promotions, Mr. Mecham counsels with national and international business.