BGN Entrepreneur

Your business needs to be different from the rest, no matter you are in a niche market or not, or the potential customers will have no reason to choose your offering rather than the ones of anyone else.
In marketing, the process of differentiation is for the business to distinguish their differences in a product or service from the other competitors in practice. It helps make the business more attractive to a particular target market above the average. It is the core of competition and it depends on creativity, integrity, as well as current trends.
The concept of Unique Selling Proposition (USP) refers to the advertisement with the purpose to communicate differentiation. It is done in order to demonstrate the unique aspects of the product or service and then to create a sense of value in the mind of the consumers. A business does not need to have any earth-shattering characteristics to become unique. Depending on the different nature of the very business, the uniqueness can be some various kinds of small differences in daily practice. It can be as simple as just listing the prices or relevant business descriptions online, providing of twenty-four seven customer support or actually same day delivery. You just need to develop the derivatives of some simple functions in the right way. But the characteristic has to be something the customers really value and care about. Nice package on plumbing parts or useless accessories are not USPs at all. Many businesses have taken it wrong.
Generally speaking, for small businesses, the differences that count can be summarized as following.
1. Product or service that cannot be got from anywhere else. Being the only source for an item or service means that you have cornered the market, which will turn to be a powerful advantage. However, usually it is rarely the case due to today’s pretty open market.
2. Closer or more convenient access to a desired product or service will bring you more customers as they can easily purchase products or service from you rather than from the one which may take them more effort. Website design and marketing literature can be very vital to make this clear.
3. Quality offerings are still important. Though people often rule price above offerings, they won’t pay a lower price for downright poor products or service either. And it should be remembered that, outdone large corporations with mega purchase power, for most small businesses, it’s almost always impossible to compete on price and still make a fortune.
4. Better value refers to the integrity merchandizing package of product and service, including information, friendliness, personal attention, as well as availability of various products. It is different from price, which may be the most powerful thing in marketing as it covers the whole shopping feeling of customers. As a result, it is also the most difficult aspect to achieve.
5. Access to variety at one stop is one of the main reasons that many people shop at Wal-Mart. It doesn’t mean that you need to do the same, but if you want to build good customer relations, you need to be willing to go out of the way for loyal customers.
6. Customized and personal solutions can be a powerful niche with long term effect in keeping customers. But it is a hard to advertise about quickly.

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