USPs were developed in the late 1950s/early 1960s by Rosser Reeves. Over the decades, they have been shown to be a highly effective means for advertising. This has held true for giant corporations and even small businesses and service professionals.

Some of the more popular USPs have been used for decades. Im sure youll recognize these two...

Wonder Bread helps build strong bodies in eight ways.

Certs breath mints with a magic drop of retsyn.

USPs are everywhere, if you take the time to notice. Keep learning about this positioning tactic and youll probably never look at advertising the same!

In addition to being used in highly effective advertising campaigns for the last fifty years, Americas highest paid marketing consultant, Jay Abraham, also recommends their use. Hes helped giant corporations like Holiday Inn and Taco Bell with their marketing campaigns as well as small businesses.

Jay Abraham is also a prolific writer who has put his marketing genius down on paper as well as putting on seminars (if you get the chance to purchase any of his books or go to one of his seminars, Id recommend it). He never falters to suggest the use of USPs for any type of business in any of his courses or seminars.

So whether you offer a service or a product, you need to find a way to differentiate your business from your competitors. It doesnt matter if you are a dentist, hairdresser, realtor, accountant, doctor, lawyer, graphic designer, etc...

-or-

If you offer tools, cleaning supplies, websites, how-to books, seminars, or anything else imaginable...

The use of a unique selling proposition in your business will only stand to benefit you.

Here is what a profit pulling USP will allow you to do.

* Find a niche and position yourself as the ONLY choice for that niche.

* Place your product or service on a different level than your competition, catapult you to higher plane of business and enable you to sell in a vacuum (i.e. no direct competition).

* Protect you from market fluctuations.

* Break free from mindless advertising and get your product or service remembered more than any other in your market.

* Grant a stronger preference for your companys products and services so you can charge more and customers will gladly pay your higher price.

Sound interesting? Well I certainly hope so.

Examples of Profit Pulling USPs

Last time, I gave you some proof on the value of using a unique selling proposition. In this part of the ecourse, Id like to provide you with some examples of profit pulling USPs.

But first, I want you to be aware of the power of a USP. You may want to think of a USP as a marketing strategy. Without a well thought out strategy, your advertising will send out random messages that dont have a common theme.

This will prevent it from being as effective as it would have been if you had a strategy in place.

Itd be like a basketball team with no game plan. With no strategy, the players will scramble around on the court, aimlessly, and their game will surely suffer. Even if they are the top players in the world, without a coherent game plan, they probably dont stand a chance against opponents with a well thought out strategy.

As you are hopefully starting to see, it is difficult to have any type of coherent marketing message or game plan without a USP. Most businesses are left struggling to attract new clients by shouting out, were the best, or buy from me.

So how do the experts do it?

Well, Ill give you a couple of examples of well known USPs. First of all, let me say that its easy to gloss right over the power of these USPs because we are so familiar with them. But within each of them is the key to multi-million dollar advertising campaigns.

While a multi-million dollar campaign is probably not what youre after, pointing out what makes these timeless USPs tick is still very important.

So lets give it a go and start with Head & Shoulders -Healthy, beautiful, dandruff free hair.

If youve ever been to the shampoo aisle at the supermarket, youve seen it. And there are literally hundreds of shampoos to choose from. So when Head & Shoulders came out, who wouldve noticed, right?

Wrong. Everybody noticed because Head & Shoulders targets people with dry, flaky scalps. People with dandruff. And this made all the difference to their campaign.

Without its dandruff fighting power, Head & Shoulders would just be another shampoo.

Can you see the power in selecting a target audience; a niche?

Of course, people who dont have dandruff arent going to be as interested. But Head & Shoulders practically has a monopoly on the dandruff crowd --and have for decades. They were the first (to my knowledge) to cater to people with dry scalps and they are still going strong today.

Its a unique concept and although it seems obvious now, it was highly creative at the time.

Papa Johns -Better ingredients. Better pizza. Papa Johns.

Papa Johns is owned by John Schnatter. His pizzeria would have just been another local pizza joint if not for his unique positioning in the marketplace. He wanted to stand out, and he did.

He follows through on the promise and has succeeded tremendously. Who would have thought having the best pizza ingredients would have been such a key to pizza success?

Do you also notice how this USP implies that other pizza restaurants are not using the freshest ingredients? This packs in an extra powerful punch.

Notice how either of these companies could have chosen to simply say were better, but they didnt. Instead, they took it much further by being specific.

Hopefully, you are starting to see the power of a USP. You dont want to be just another dentist, mechanic, Laundromat, or just another marketer. You dont want to offer just another set of tools, another how to book, or another cleaning detergent. You want to stand out!