What's your businesses USP?

Your USP is especially important when your product or service is similar to those around you. Very few businesses are one-of-a-kind. Just look around you: How many clothing retailers, hardware stores, air conditioning installers and electricians are truly unique? 

The key to effective selling in this situation is what advertising and marketing professionals call a "unique selling proposition" or “unique selling point” (USP). Unless you can pinpoint what makes your business unique in a world of competition, you cannot target your sales efforts successfully. 

Pinpointing your USP requires some hard soul-searching and creativity. One way to start is to analyze how other companies use their USP’s to their advantage. This requires careful analysis of other companies ads and marketing messages. If you analyze what they say they sell, not just their product or service characteristics, you can learn a great deal about how companies distinguish themselves from competitors. 

For example, Charles Revson, founder of Revlon, always used to say he sold hope, not makeup. Some airlines sell friendly service, while others sell on-time service. 

Each of these is an example of a company that has found a USP "peg" on which to hang its marketing strategy. A business can peg its USP on product characteristics, price structure, placement strategy (location and distribution) or promotional strategy. These are what marketers call the "four P's" of marketing. They are manipulated to give a business a market position that sets it apart from the competition. 

Here's how to uncover your USP and use it to power up your sales: 

Put yourself in your customer's shoes 

Too often, business owners fall in love with their product or service and forget that it is the customer's needs, not their own, that they must satisfy. Step back from your daily operations and carefully scrutinize what your customers really want. Suppose you own a pizza parlor. Sure, customers come into your pizza place for food. But is food all they want? What could make them come back again and again and ignore your competition? The answer might be quality, convenience, reliability, friendliness, cleanliness, courtesy or customer service. 

Remember!, price is never the only reason people buy. If your competition is beating you on pricing because they are larger, you have to find another sales feature that addresses the customer's needs and then build your sales and promotional efforts around that feature. 

Know what motivates your customers' behavior and buying decisions 

Effective marketing requires you to be an amateur psychologist. You need to know what drives and motivates customers. Go beyond the traditional customer demographics, such as age, gender, race, income and geographic location, that most businesses collect to analyze their sales trends. For our pizza shop example, it is not enough to know that 75 percent of your customers are in the 18-to-25 age range. You need to look at their motives for buying pizza-taste, peer pressure, convenience and so on. 

Cosmetics and alcohol companies are great examples of industries that know the value of psychologically oriented promotion. People buy these products based on their desires (for pretty women, luxury, glamour and so on), not on their needs. 

Uncover the real reasons customers buy your product instead of a competitor's

As your business grows, you'll be able to ask your best source of information: your customers. For example, the pizza entrepreneur could ask them why they like his pizza over others, plus ask them to rate the importance of the features he offers, such as taste, size, ingredients, atmosphere and service. You will be surprised how honest people are when you ask how you can improve your service. 

If your business is just starting out, you won't have a lot of customers to ask yet, so "shop" your competition instead. Many retailers routinely drop into their competitors' stores to see what and how they are selling. If you're really brave, try asking a few of the customers after they leave the premises what they like and dislike about the competitors' products and services. 

Once you've gone through this three-step market intelligence process, you need to take the next - and hardest! - step: clearing your mind of any preconceived ideas about your product or service and being brutally honest. What features of your business jump out at you as something that sets you apart? What can you promote that will make customers want to patronize your business? How can you position your business to highlight your USP? 

Don't get discouraged. Successful business ownership is not about having a unique product or service; it's about making your product stand out - even in a market filled with similar items. 

The Paperless Office Prediction!

The prediction of a paperless office, which was made way back in 1975 in a Business Weekly article entitled ‘The Office of the Future’ accurately envisioned numerous things, except for the paperless office aspect - in fact paper usage in the office environment (and in our homes) has drastically increased since back then. This is largely due to the computer systems and electronics that were supposed to do away with paper. The end result is we send everything to printers and paper consumption is only going to increase as the population grows. 

However that does not mean that the whole concept of less paper in the office is a bad idea, of course not! Using less paper is, as we all know better for our environment, if only we didn’t need it so much - or do we? Virtual marketing materials offer so many advantages you would be foolish to ignore them. No expensive printing costs! No postage stamps! No envelopes! Fewer trips to the post office! Plus it can save you a lot of money! All without a single tree being cut down! 

 

Blick Media can convert printed brochures into virtual based versions, distributable to an infinite number of recipients. Distribute your online brochures, catalogues and magazines via e-mail or embed them seamlessly into your web site for online viewing. 

Perhaps it’s time you thought about looking at virtual marketing? Read more here. 

Do high street retailers have a future?

High Street vs Online Retailer 

Whilst the high street stores have struggled for sales, online shops are achieving great success. Why? If you like it or not the world is changing – people don’t want to drag themselves to the shops in the rain, snow etc., not when they can shop online and get everything delivered to their door. The choices online will always beat what’s available in the high street stores, at prices that simply can’t be matched by high street stores owing to their vast overheads.

The high street empty of customers

The big question is does the high street shop retailer have a future? We believe that retailers need to look towards spending a lot less on glitzy stores, and strengthen their online presence. Unfortunately if they don’t they will vanish alongside many others who once had strong brands. Take HMV the music store – this once giant on the high street failed to respond to this and look where they are now, with receivers! Perhaps if they had realised the power of the Internet, they would have adjusted their business model and closed a few high street shops, reducing their overheads, HMV could have used the funds that would have been available to build and develop an online presence, which worked. HMV had a very strong brand name, which has been associated with music for many years, but that was not enough to stop shoppers purchasing music online through other retailers.

When high street retailers do go online they must remember things are a little different on the web, competition is greater and your competitors are just a simple click away. Your store may have the monopoly on the high street, but it’s very doubtful you will achieve the same online. High street retailers have got rich with once huge profit margins, but those days are over. Profit margins online have to be lowered to remain competitive but you must remember your volume of sales will increase! After all, is it not better to sell many items making a little, or making no sales at all?

If you’re a high street retailer, looking for an online presence that works for you, contact Blick Media today!

QR Codes - Fad or not? It does not matter!

You will have seen them everywhere by now - printed on the corner of tickets, on posters, and even at the end of TV ads. Are they worth using in your marketing, or are they just a passing fad? 

For those that don't already know - a QR code invented in Japan back in 1994, is a type of two-dimensional barcode that can be read using smartphones and dedicated QR reading devices, that link directly to text, emails, websites, phone numbers and more! 

Are QR codes a passing fad? 

The simple answer is it does not matter! They are here now, and they do offer marketing benefits that simply are not possible by other methods and they provide consistent positive results. So weather they are a passing fad, or something else is going to replace it next week does not matter, it's here now! So take advantage of it now! 

Just remember - if you want to use QR codes for business or marketing purposes, then you should consider that people have higher expectations from scanning a QR code than they do simply clicking a link on a website. You should offer them something special or unique to people that have taken the time and effort to scan the QR code. 

Also remember that many people won't know what a QR code is or how to use it, so it may be a good idea to provide instructions. 

If you are interested in learning about what QR codes can do for your business, get in touch with Blick Media. 

Internet Marketing - are you being serious?

The vast majority of small businesses are unaware that they could be receiving high volume, high quality enquiries, leads, phone calls and sales via interested prospective clients; if only they had a professionally designed website that has been search engine optimized by an experienced SEO expert.

When a website is professionally optimized, it’s like moving a little shop from the back-streets in the middle of nowhere and relocating it bang in the middle of the high street.

Your website is a unique part of you marketing in one really important respect: it alone has the power to either destroy or to drastically increase the response rates of all your other marketing activities. So, if you send a mail-shot for example, be aware that the people that were interested in what you offered will visit your website before they decide to contact you (or not!). This means the quality and content of your website has to encourage people to completely trust you and see you in a wholly professional light.

Something else you need to know: Almost everyone now uses the Internet to ‘check out’ a potential service provider; before deciding whether to do business with them or not! That includes the people you market your services to. So, what is your website saying about your business?

E-mail Marketing if you have not started, you should!

E-mail Marketing a very powerful tool for your business. 

Email marketing is extremely cost effective and one of the most powerful marketing tool available to businesses today, this is because it provides consistent results whilst costs are minimal. 

Here are just a few things for you to consider, before you start using e-mail marketing. 

We strongly recommend that you build your own e-mail database, rather than buying one from a third party company. List's purchased like this are often over worked and are seldom the catalyst of any successful marketing campaigns. 

If you have not already started building a mailing list, start building one by asking all your existing clients and contacts if you can add their email address to your list. (Important) Never just add people to your email list. You must have their permission, otherwise they will regard your emails as spam.  Then, ask if you can contact them from time to time via email with a newsletter or special offers or announcements.  This will get you your initial list and give you something to get started with. You should also add a email sign-up box on your website. 

We recommend that you do not send more than one or two email messages in any month, no-one likes being bombarded with constant messaging, it's annoying and one of the quickest ways to loose contacts from your list. 

Finally, (and this is very important) ask your readers to forward your emails on to their contacts.  If the content is good enough, they will – but never assume, always ask them.  Include a message at the end of every newsletter, which says; “if you have had this email forwarded to you by a friend and you would like to receive a regular copy, you can join our readership here.” (Then link from that text, to the newsletter sign up page on your site.) 

Please remember: with e-maiI marketing it is important to check and abide by the rules governing email marketing in your country. 

ICO New Corporate Image cost a staggering £38,399.83

No joke! This is what the ICO do with YOUR money. 

After looking through the Information Commissioner's Offices (ICO's) website we have seen that they have had a new corporate image designed, hardly a great leap forward, however what's even more amazing is that according to documents on the ICO's website, they spent a staggering £38,399.83 on their new 'Corporate Image' (£28,520 on "Corporate identity design - research, concepts, proposals, design and production of manual").

The ICO are the people who are responsible for the ongoing 'Cookie' fiasco which has led to them to relax/reevaluate the law relating to cookies owing to the fact that so many people simply ignored them.

Personally I think they need to sort themselves out before they worry about a new logo! Especially when this country is in a recession. What an amazing waste of public money!

Message to ICO: Next time your looking to rebrand yourself, give us a call here at Blick Media, I know we could do a far better job and it would cost considerably less than £38,399.83 that's for sure!

Blick Media would love to hear your thoughts on their new corporate image, do you think it's a good use of public money?