B2B Unique Selling Proposition Guide

In the B2B world, you need to focus on your USP. That's short for unique selling proposition. The average B2B company fails to fully optimize its USP to fully boost sales of its products and services. This is a very overlooked part of optimizing your ROMI (return on marketing investment). It's usually the responsibility of upper management and your CMO. 

Often as digital marketers we forget that part of the USP also is:

• The quality of the content we share and distribute on our channels
• The originality of how we use the social channels
• The authenticity which we respond to engaging comments, customer service on social media, etc...

 For these too are factors that can differentiate you from your competitors. 

Our USP is what makes our products and services original, special and different from our competitors as viewed by our target audiences and associated personas.

1 - Concept

2 - Presentation

3 - Product Packaging

4 - Branding

5 - Authenticity of sales and marketers

An authentic or competent marketing or sales team cannot save your company, if your USP isn't designed and optimized to your target audience. Think about it, things are changing, your traditional sales funnel and CRM no longer plays such an important role, as the customer experience is fundamentally changing with the evolution of digital channels, mobile marketing and ecommerce.

If your USP is weak, your company will fail, if not today, then next year.

Unique Selling Proposition Vision-Process

1 - What are you selling and what does it do?

2 - Do your products, brochures, adds, email marketing and social media strategy clearly reflect this?

3 - Does upper management, sales and marketing share the same vision of your USP?

4 - What is different about your brand compared to your competitors?

5 - Does your product packaging reflect this?

6 - What hasn't worked in the past with regards to your product packaging and branding?

7 - Has it been corrected?

8 - What do your most satisfied customers value most about your services and products?

9 - Have they ever been surveyed?

10 - Do your white papers, blog and social media strategy capture and add value to your USP?

11 - Has anyone ever seriously given time to fully research and analyze your USP in relation to your current branding strategy with regards to your most typical customer segments?

Optimizing your CVP

CVP stands for customer value proposition. It is the sum total of benefits which a vendor promises a customer will receive in return for the customer's associated payment.

A company's knowledge of the CVP of their products and services, is the equivalent to an individual's self-knowledge. It's a crucial element of optimizing your USP. Think about it, if you are just guessing and going in blindingly without this knowledge, you will miss more than you will hit. And your products won't do as well as they could have.

 Your CVP must demonstrate: 

1 - Desirability (products and services in demand)

2 - Different (to benefits offered elsewhere)

3 - Defensible (you can prove with good evidence your claims can be substantiated)

With a B2B audience, the focus should really be on #3. Since they will be more assertive in the bottom line and ask those hard questions. 

A good CVP allows:

• Higher credibility and trust 
• Higher customer satisfaction
• Tweaking of poor points in customer experience
• Higher differentiation from your company
• Better brand reach
• Improved brand social authority and B2B reputation

You could have a great innovative product, but without copywriters, sales and marketing team to emphasize and who are on the same page, it won't come to much.

I could write a book about this topic, but these are just some preliminary thoughts. Because in B2B your prospects are highly educated, you can't expect to have a compelling USP without a sophisticated video on your landing page, slideshare content that is highly quality and webinars that are top-notch & interactive. 

 What else do you think contributes to a compelling USP?

• Are you case studies persuasive and authentic and include enough factual data?
• What can you do better than your competitors 
• What kind of clients has your product been the most helpful for?
• Are your testimonials credible and have room for social authority verification?
• Do you have video testimonials?
• Do you create user generated content contests to boost social USP advocates and organic content?
• Have you ever conducted an "authenticity" audit on your branding?
• What is the next generation of advertizing look like for your target personas?

 Checklist: 

1 - What is your current USP? Is it Unique? Is is identifiable and memorable compared to your competition? If not, change it. 

2 - Is your USP clearly articulated in your product packaging, sales team, marketing efforts and most valued and satisfied customers? You want congruency here.

3 - Does your USP match with what customers most value about your products and services? If so, are you doing social right to expand the reach of your USP in your targeted network? Does your entire team do social and create content that adds value to your USP?

4 - Do you upgrade the following on a periodic basis and especially for a mobile audience that is more geared to video: 

• Customer experience (search, buy, help, review)
• branding
• website
• testimonials 
• Team - about us 
• Social media channels 
• White papers
• Promotions 
• Email marketing efforts