I hate USP's

Why?

What did it for me was the lunch when I was asked:-

"hello whats your name and whats your USP" aarrgghhhh its gone to far

"my USP is exterminating anyone who asks silly questions"

In researching UPS's I did discover the inventor - Rosser Reeves

He wrote his first book in 1961, The Reality of Advertising. This book laid out the selling technique that he is famous for, the USP: Unique Selling Proposition

The criteria was

Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: 'Buy this product and you will get this specific benefit.'

The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique-either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising.

The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions; i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

His idea was that you picked one thing about your product - its USP, and you used facts not fancy words and you used these words repeatedly over the life of the product.

So what does make you, your brand, your product different?

Define what it is that makes you different from your competitors, ask yourself these questions.

1. What is really different about your business or brand vs. your competitors?
2. Which of these factors are most important to your customers or potential customers?
3. What is it that your current customers have in common? Look for the solution of the problem inside the customer/prospect's mind.
4. Which of these factors cannot or are not easily imitated by your competitors?
5. Which of these factors can be easily communicated and understood by your customers or potential customers?
6. Can you construct a memorable message (USP) of these unique, meaningful qualities about your business or brand?
7. How will you communicate this message (USP) to buyers and end users? (advertising, promotion programs (e.g., direct mail), packaging, web, etc)
8. What are the "extras" that I bring to the market?

Let me know how you do.

Too busy for marketing - whoops

Well of course if I was too busy to blog I would of course be too busy to market.

That is of course not entirely true I have managed to go to some networking events and I have signed up to a business club.

Why will 2006 be different I hear you cry????

1. For a start I MUST practise what I preach.
2. I have the time between Christmas and New Year to put my campiagns together
3. I have engaged a company to exchange time with.

Let me tell you more about the time exchange, its quite simple really. I provide marketing support and they provide me with admin support.

Who do you know that you could collaborate with? Who has something that you value.

Its not always about money.

To busy to blog

Wow what a busy period I found myself in. 3 or 4 meetings a day, then having to catch up.........

But I have really enjoyed myself. There are so many companies who have some great ideas but do not know how to market them, it has been a pleasure (mostly) to help them to get their ideas out of their heads.

Raspberry poptarts

Today I have mostley been eating Raspberry PopTarts????

Why?

The monotony of cleaning a database can only be likened to eating something as horrible as poptarts for a week. Poor Jesse! And poor you if you are the long suffering marketing manager who has to put up with poor database entry.

How can marketing run targeted campaigns with poor information?

Why is it when you train, train and train your staff some more they just keep on entering data in some slap dash and totally haphazard way?

I listen to people moaning all the time about how letters come into them. Imagine it says this on your letter mR joHn brON and your name is actually Mr Jonathan Brown, isn't it infuriating?

Well duh..... So why do you continue to enter absolute rubbish in your company database then?

I know I hate it when the local double glazing company with whom I have spent a considerable amount of money keep calling me Mrs Jackson, when I am still a Miss and my name is NOT Jackson, and despite me telling them 6 times to update thier records. They even started a conversation with the right name and called me Mrs Jackson in the middle. Help! There is no salvation for these people.

GIGO - garbage in garbage out.

What's the solution?

In my humble opinion:-
set the ground rules when a new member of staff starts
run regular reports to highlight poor data entry
chop off a finger for each week it continues

Any other ideas anyone?

Everyone needs a blog. Right?

Last night I went to a PR and training event in Cardiff. It was the end of a long day, which started with an networking breakfast at 7am.

Anyway the point is that all companies need to network and at these events you always meet someone new and learn something new.

Last night I learnt that I needed a blog. So here it is.

I am passionate about marketing, so my blog will be all about how you can get the best out of marketing.

Another tip is only to blog when you have something interesting to say. So I will shut up now, and come back when I wont bore you to death.

In the meantime check out my website http://www.50five.co.uk/