The Most Powerful Marketing Secret on The Planet
Have you noticed how customers flood through the doors of one business and completely ignore a competitor just two blocks away? Why?
You could name a lot of reasons why one store doesnt’ do as well as another but I want to focus on the marketing strategy that makes a business irrisitable. You know the ones that customers can’t stay out of.
Here’s the secret.
What makes one business soar to the top of the success mountain with others struggle at the base is what I refer to as the ….
It’s the "reason why" your customer should choose you over your competition? Every customer has to answer the "reason why" question in their mind before doing buisness somewhere.
Let’s go back in history and reveiw Unique Selling Propositions (USP), you can look at Apple Computer at it’s inception. Here was a company housed in a garage, no fancy office, no one knew who they were yet based on thier USP they became one of the fastest growing companies of their time. Even though they were competing against well established giant IBM and then Microsoft.
What was their unique purchase appeal? At its core it was their "point and click" operating system which made it possible for the "rest of us" to operate a computer without having to speak geek!
At the time it was revolutionary. Just take a mouse and point and click. And it, along with all the other cool stuff it could do, took them to the top of the moutain.
However, they lost their advantage when Microsoft figured out their own verison of the "point and click" and of course now the rest is history.
Staying in the history mode lets take another walk down memory lane… Domino’s Pizza. These guys started out as a single pizza store and have a vision and a unique purchase appeal. Do you remember what it was?
They didn’t promise the best pizza, they didn’t even promise the best tasting pizza, nor did they promise the least expensive pizza. Just delivered in 30 minutes fresh and hot or it’s free.
None of the their competition made this promise although many offered free delivery, and it took Dominos from obscurity all the way to the top of the pizza mountain in record time.
Yes they ended up losing their UPA, at least in part, when they started kiling people with it. You may remember that their pizza drivers hit and killed a few people trying to make their deliveries in less than 30 minutes. They could no longer make this promise but it was powerful enough to keep them at the number 2 spot on the top 100 pizza companies in the world even today.
Wal-Mart shot to the top by utilizing a duel USP. Not only did they do the "low price" deal, but they selected markets outside of the metropolitan big city and found a niche in a more "rural" environment. Thus immediately making them the "big fish" in the little pond versus a guppy in the big city.
Why you shouldn’t use low price as a USP
Most entrepreneurs try and compete based on the low price like Wal-Mart USP, even though they aren’t a Wal-Mart nor will they ever be and they completely miss the point that they don’t want to be.
Frankly, low price is the least profitable and the least appealing USP there is. For example take a look at Blockbuster.
The early years of the video rental market was filled with small mom and pop shops. It was a new industry and location usually established their customer base. At first making money was like shooting fish in a barrel but not as messy.
Then corporate America got involved with the Blockbuster type operation. It was truly sad to watch what the mom and pop shops did to compete with the video rental giants.
With zero marketing background and even less imagination they lowered their prices!
Oh wow! What a great idea! Let’s lower our prices, cut our already thinning profit margins, make ourselves less competitive and send ourselves to the poor house faster than the re-entry speed of the space shuttle.
Not many small mom and pop shops around today are there? What where they competing against that was so powerful that "low price" couldn’t defeat it? It was "widest selection". And at the time consumers were willing to pay more for it.
Then you’ve seen how the video rental big boys have changed or adjusted their USP around extended rental time, lower late fees, no late fees, to monthly memberships with unlimited rentals and no late fees.
And all this creative marketing isn’t enough to keep Blockbuster ahead of the new competition with a new more powerful USP. They have just recently narrowly escaped bankruptcy.
Again in an effort to compete in a changing market where you can buy videos in a retail environment for about the price of one rental fee and a late charge, Blockbuster resorted to lower prices with their monthly membership with unlimited viewing and no late fees.
Now add NetFlix to the picture, with it’s online convience USP, Blockbuster is definetely in a fight for survival.
As you can see a Unique Purchase Appeal can make you big bucks. It can also do the same for your competition.
It would be worth the investment in time and money to come up with one don’t you think?
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