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Swimming Against The Stream....Developing Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)Swimming Against The Stream....Developing Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)© 2002 by Detlev Reimer Marketing in the offline world is solely based on the law of supply and demand . That is not different on the Internet and it is your task to find out what your potential customers need. You must be the person to give it to them ! Finding Your Niche Market It is vitally important to your business that you set yourself apart from all the other marketers. There are thousands of other people trying to do the same like you. Why should any- body buy from you and not from your competitor ? If you can answer this question , you are on your way to a success- ful .com company, even if you're home based. In fact, some of the biggest companies have started as a home based business. The big advantage is that you can start part- time until you make enough money from it to change it into your full time income. Isn't that what you want to achieve ? Being your own boss, setting your own working hours .... Focus On Your Personal Passion It is important that by finding your niche market you focus on your personal passion, whether you're marketing a gardening site, a fishing site or an Internet marketing web site. You must do what you really love to do to become a successful business person and to stay motivated. If you do what you love and you put enough effort in your business, you simply can't fail ! If you have found this passion, be more specific. So if you are fond of gardening, tell your potential customers not everything about gardening in general but about the topic you're specia- lized in , e.g. growing roses and crossbreeding new species . Or maybe you know how to grow the biggest tomatoes the world has ever seen ....... Identify Your Customers' Needs Maybe you've heard that many of your neighbours would like to have orange coloured roses in their garden and they don't know how to find the right crossbreed of roses for that . If you have that knowledge and you can give it to them with an info product , you'll have a product that is very likely to sell extra-ordinary well . Or you can check newsgroups and discussion groups to get an overview about what is needed in your specific niche . But be careful : If you promise to deliver a certain benefit, you must keep your word or your hard earned USP will be gone before the word has been spread about it . And negative impressions spread even faster ... Develop Products In Demand Within Your Niche Market Having recognized these needs, you can soon start establishing yourself as someone who has what the market wants. Turn your knowledge into info products (ebooks, reports, workshops or even software) which are easily duplicatable . Then , to come back to your company and your web site, you must automate the whole selling process (web site, getting opt-in email addresses, credit card system, autoresponders) and restart the process of finding your customer's needs so you'll free your time again and always be able to create new and in demand products. Add Additional Value To Your Products To be different from the rest, you have to take a look at your competitors and see where they are successful, what they are doing and which methods they use for it. And then you can copy the promising aspects of other businesses and add your little twist to it. Do something different ..... A simple "Please buy from me" won't help ! Your products must offer greater benefits than your competitors'. They should be easier , faster, cheaper and better than any other marketer can deliver them . Give your customers a better guaran- tee, more bonuses, personal consultation, whatever it takes to close the sale . Of course this will be different when you are the only person who delivers a special product . Then you are the one who can set the price . But it won't take long until others copy your success and then you must act again by being different. Give Specific Benefits If you advertise, you must give specific benefits . Instead of saying "With this new diet pill X you'll lose a lot of weight !" you should tell your prospects : "Discover how the new substance xy in our revolutionary diet pill made Raymond Chandler loose 14 pounds in 9 days ! " then you are on track . State your USP directly in your headline . If you have a customer support that is available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, then tell it to your customers : "Got a technical problem ? We're there for you. Call us any day at any time, and our technical support team will be there to assist you ! That makes you a number one seller, not if you're trying to appeal to generic requirements ..... Even Affiliates Have To Be Different If you don't sell your own products but affiliate programs, it is al- most the same. Be different . Don't use the same overused ads all the other affiliates of that company use. Even as an affiliate, with out your own range of products, you must be different . Write about the affiliate product in your own words, highlight a variety of benefits and more importantly : Prepare more than just 1 or 2 headlines to see which are working best for you. State your additional benefits clearly in your headline already to make it work. Test and track your results and decide which ones are delivering and bring you the best ROI (Return On Investment) . Being Special Pays Off .... By setting yourself apart, you can make money with the same programs and products many other marketers are trying to sell without any success - Presupposed you have high quality products . It may be more work if you have to write completely different ads, autoresponder series, articles about these products etc. but the additional effort will highly be compensated for by much higher earnings in the end..... Are you prepared to swim against the stream ... ?
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