Developing relevant and targeted marketing messages, the quality of message that will motivate your potential customers to consistently take action, is fundamental to any marketing campaign. Otherwise, messages may not be targeted to the subconscious emotional needs and conscious rational needs of your target customers. Relevant and targeted marketing messages often require careful Service Positioning.
Service positioning is the process of determining the specific perceptions and impressions that must be established in the minds of your potential customers in order to motivate them to pursue and eventually select your professional services.
The Importance of Service Positioning
If you neglect the process of service positioning, than your lead generation and lead conversion messages will be left to chance and luck. However, if you carefully position your services with consideration to your target market understanding, than your ability to effectively speak to the emotional preferences and rational needs of your prospects will prompt them to action and increase your marketing success.
There are several important considerations to be made as part of the service positioning process. These considerations include the your relative standing in the marketplace, your unique service proposition (USP) or tag line, and your positioning statements.
In this article we will focus on the second of these considerations, your unique service proposition or tag line, and discuss how its effective development and implementation into your marketing communications will significantly improve the initial prospect engagement achieved using select lead generation channels.
The Power of Including a Unique Service Proposal (USP)
Your unique service proposition (USP) or tag line or slogan is one of the most powerful service positioning tools for effectively branding your professional practice and engaging a prospects subconscious emotional attention.
Your USB or tag line is a short phrase that conveys your service benefit. This USP is often added as a headline to business cards, websites, promotional literature, novelty items, your website, blog, email marketing campaigns, and other marketing strategies.
The purpose of headlining select lead generation channels with your tag line is depth. From the perspective of service branding, this string of words placed alongside your logo and company name are critical to defining your position within the marketplace. However, if properly executed, your tag line will not only brand your services, but initially grab the attention of your prospects, given its relevance to one of their common and significant emotional needs or needs. This is when the true power of the tag line is released because, by aligning with this emotional want, the USB will prompt their desire for more information on your professional practice, motivating them to fulfill just about any call to action (CTA) promoted as part of the lead generation strategy.
For this reason, your USP is an excellent vehicle to initially engage prospects, and bridge this initial exposure with a desire for more information, the precursor of course, to effective lead capturing. However, in order to grab a prospects attention, it is important that your USP is consistent with the needs and desires of you target clients, the benefits of your services, and conveys a service proposal with impact and punch.
Developing an Effective USP
In order to establish the greatest impact and punch, your USP must focus upon the emotional graification that your customers will receive by selecting your services. A tag line may or may not communicate anything sensible. Some of the most successful USP's are vague to enable several different interpretations by the subconscious mind. The important thing to remember in developing a unique service proposition is that its true power comes from the associations developed in the subconscious mind. While there is no hard and fast rule for how to develop a tag line, here are a few important rules to consider.
1. Keep it short and memorable;
2. Focus on the promise of emotional gratification or your service benefit;
3. Make sure it's vague enough to capture a prospects imagination;
4. Make sure it's compatible with your client's perceptions of your relative standing in the marketplace; and
5. Make sure it is reflects a specific emotional want of a specific target market.
In our experience, unique service propositions may be classified into one of five broad categories. These five categories may include an Experimental Service USP; a Performance Service USP; a Value Service USP; a preemptive persuasion USP; or a sensory stimulation USP.
1. Experimental Service USP
There are two main experimental service USP's. The first often referred to as an experimental niche market USP takes the position that you are the only specialist or expert serving a specific market or customer set. The second, often referred to as an experimental niche service USP, will emphasize an aspect of your professional practice that sets you apart from the competition. For example, if you were a financial advisor then you may state, "Achieve the Greatest Returns with Our Proprietary High Growth Investment System."
2. Performance Service USP
To establish a performance service USP, you may state your high relative performance or high relative standing in the marketplace. Performance service USP's have a tendency to be more explicit and rational then the remaining four broad categories. For example, if you were a mortgage agent then your USP may state, "Saving You Thousand of Dollars on Your Mortgage!"
3. Value Service USP
A value service USP will focus on offering the greatest benefit or greatest value for the price. While a value USP may start off vague to elicit the unconscious mind, it will often finish off with an explicit statement to rationalize the claim. For example, your value unique service position may be, "Not only another accountant, however the best value for your tax return". Value Service USP's have even been known to even offer service guarantees such as, "Significant weight loss or your money back, guaranteed!"
4. Preemptive Persuasion
With a preemptive persuasion you will favorably differentiate your service by establishing a link or association in your prospect's subconscious minds between your service and a positive emotion or gratification that your prospective customers are seeking. For example, a chiropractor may develop the USP, What is Relief? … John Doe Chiropractic. In this case, relief is the emotional gratification and John Doe is relief.
5. Sensory Stimulating USP
A sensory stimulating USP involves loading messages with emotional associations, brand imagery or sensory stimulation. While often ambiguous, the message will have a subconscious appeal, engaging the prospect to generate several subconscious interpretations. For instance, consider the marketing campaign of one Toronto real estate agent which employed the USP, "Why hire a lamb, when you can hire a tiger." The brand or service imagery was generated into ways. First, the message differentiated this agent's brokerage from another local brokerage branded by the broker's last name – Lamb. Second, the agent's physical pose in the marketing campaign delivered an impression of strength and success, including large tattoos of tigers on each of his folded arms. While the statement provided no practical message, the sensory package was memorable, exuding an image of power that attracted a young niche market that was looking to reinforce or reassure them competitive edge and strength in a competitive Toronto real estate market.
Implement Your USP Today
Your USP will not only be an exceptional branding tool for your business though a lead generation message that preempts prospects to desire more information on your company. Therefore, if you have not already developed one, than do so today!
Remember, no matter the category of USP you select, it is imperative that you consider the emotional needs of your target market, your current relative standing, your service benefits and the preferences of your target markets.
By addressing each with impact and punch, your USP will drive prospects to fulfill your call to action and contribute immensely to your marketing and lead generation success!
