Reilly Newman | A timeless business cliche is the “unique selling proposition” or sometimes referred to as your USP. Commonly confused with your “unique value proposition (UVP)”, these terms start to get in the way of actually achieving what your business set out to do. Similar to how many entrepreneurs get hung up on things like having the perfect business plan instead of just getting started, these terms sometimes add more confusion than they do success.
Sometimes, keeping things simple is the best way forward. From USPs to UVPs, these bells and whistles begin to be redundant if your brand is properly in place. How can a strategic brand be the solution to so many topics you read about in business journals and blogs? Simply put, a brand (by definition) is unique.
A brand is more than a logo or look or catchy slogan. It is more than awareness or even revenue. A brand boils down to contrast. This ultimately is the defining aspect that is the core reason why your business stands out from the crowd. The byproducts of standing out are the items I listed previously as well as better marketing and advertising thanks to more effective USPs and UVPs.
These byproducts are naturally derived from brand because a great brand will be strategic. It will have a strategy that properly outlines a theory of business success. A major cornerstone of this hypothesis is how a business can be unique. This is to provide contrast to the business and most importantly the value that the business is selling.
The brand not only represents this unique position in the market, but it is also the focal point for how it should be portrayed to the market. The brand’s strategy will position it in the market, determine price points, the specific buyer, and the ways it aligns in a valuable way. These elements come together to provide further direction on the deliberate way to sell to these specific buyers. This tailored approach not only increases the effectiveness of marketing, but also adds more value to the sale that the buyer actually appreciates.
As you can see, the brand brings immense clarity to the entire ecosystem of a business. Through this clarity, your business and its efforts can be more focused. This focus empowers the business to be specific. Not only about who they best serve, but what they do best and why they do it. As they drill down further in specifications the business becomes more unique, the value it provides becomes more unique, and the way it sells becomes far more unique. The brand successfully positions the business for success and propels it to new heights because it has successfully carved out its own unique place in the market and mind of the audience. Brand empowers the business to uniquely sell its offerings to the right audience in an accurate and effective manner that provides the utmost value for the buyer.
