Guide to Defining Your USP

Defining your USP or unique selling point is necessary if you want to make a success of your marketing activity, so you’ll find it in section 5 of MarketingPlanWiz (promoting your business), and it’s also in Section 6 of the Business Plan tool (Competition and Suppliers).

What is a USP?
The short answer is that your USP is what you do differently from your competition. In a competitive market, where there are lots of suppliers chasing the same customers, it’s the best way to differentiate yourself - to the customer.

Your customer needs to know why they should buy from you, what’s in it for them if they choose you over the other company selling the same product or service? This means that your USPs should provide an obvious benefit to the potential customer, so describing the benefits of using your product or service over somebody else’s is more effective that just statements of fact like price. Notice the M&Ms USP for example: “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand” = BENEFIT. Instead of something like “milk chocolate buttons with a hard coating” = FEATURE.

If you use USPs in your marketing the customer doesn’t have to try and work it out, as the reason to buy from you should be obvious. Businesses who don’t have or don’t communicate their USPs usually end up as middle players, never top of the market.

Here are some examples:

  1. John Lewis – “never knowingly undersold”. Their price guarantee associates them with a fair service and although others have followed suit, the consumer knows that the service and quality at John Lewis is superior to others.
  2. AA – “To our members we’re the 4th emergency service”, demonstrating that their customers associate them with a fast and reliable response every time.


If you’re already in business, this is a bit easier as all you need to do is remember or find out why customers came to you in the first place. That’s usually the quickest way to work out your unique selling points. If you are about to start a business, you have the perfect opportunity to create your unique selling points ready to stand out from the crowd when you start trading.

Notice we said “points”. It’s unusual for any business to have just one thing that differentiates them from other players in the market.

If you’re already having to rack your brains:

1. What is it that you do or will do differently?
2. What outcome do you already (or want to if you haven’t started yet) deliver to your clients (without fail), which makes them stay with you?

There are some key areas to think about when you’re trying to define how you’re different:

  • Price: You will have seen companies that do this very well, differentiating themselves from the competition based on value for money and best prices in the market. Examples would be the budget airlines like Ryanair or Easyjet and retail outlets like Poundland and Wilkinsons.
  • Innovation: If what you offer is truly different from what else is out there, this one’s easy! The trick is to make sure this is apparent and must be clear in your marketing. Apple is an excellent example of this and are recognised as technology pioneers. Their brand and point of difference is clearly associated with innovation.
  • Quality of your product or service: If you can consistently offer something that is better quality this will also separate you from the competition. For many of us this is evident in our customer service, and good examples are brands such as Marks and Spencer or John Lewis. Again your marketing material must reflect this.
  • Your target market or niche: If your competition is mostly going after business in one sector of the market, are you targeting a different group of customers, or could you be? Going back to the supermarket examples, Waitrose and Marks and Spencer clearly target a different group of customers to Asda and Tesco. Their marketing identifies with these different audiences in different ways – Asda and Tesco mostly marketing on budget and low price with the other two on quality and unique product ranges.
  • Opening times and delivery or turnaround time: Same day or next day can be a powerful USP as can longer opening hours to certain groups of customers. Guaranteeing delivery times can also differentiate you from those who don’t.


It has to be tangible, just saying that you offer “high quality” or “professional” services or products is not enough, because everybody says that! Beware the trap of differentiating only on price, it’s one of the hardest USPs to maintain and usually harder on your profits.

Once you’ve identified what your USP is, check your marketing material. Does it make this clear? The home page of your website, for example, should immediately differentiate you from your competitors so it’s a good starting point. You can also have different USPs for different types of customer or product.

Most of us find that whatever industry we’re part of, there are some very successful businesses, some that fail and quite a lot that “make a living”. Which would you rather be? The “making a living” usually applies to the bunch that sits in the middle, with no particular USP.

Finally, a really good way to test your USP is to prepare an elevator pitch or short speech you can use to introduce what you do to people that you meet. If you can get across in a few minutes what’s special about you or your business (remember the benefits), you’ve cracked it!


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