Big ideas are important in business-to-business pitches. The stakes are higher, with both capital and profits on the line. Also called major selling ideas, they act as your pitch’s cornerstone, condensing your offer’s features, advantages, and benefits into an easily understandable and repeatable concept.
A Unique Selling Proposition (or USP) is a marketing concept that allows advertisers to demonstrate a product’s key effectiveness and guides their advertising campaigns’ tone, message, and overall execution. It’s the core that makes any big idea successful. Before stepping into the spotlight, take a step back and analyze if your product is memorable and unique enough to present itself. They may even guide you into becoming a better public speaker.
Here are three ways to use USP’s to improve your business pitching technique.
1. It Demonstrates Appreciable Value
People tend to invest in or buy something that either has proven value or improves their daily lives. Examine your potential customers and, if possible, find out their priorities and motivations. Use this information to determine how to best package what you’re selling.
Similarly, focus on figuring out the ideal way of convincing them to buy in or invest. Knowing how your product improves lives is an important part of fine-tuning your message. During your pitch, assert how your product can make your customers’ lives better to grab their attention.
2. It Reveals an Inimitable Quality
Your audience has probably listened to countless unmemorable pitches. If you don’t play your cards right, you could be one of the many failed proposals, especially if you’re presenting to an established business. Pitch yourself as someone who can offer something that no one else can.
Advertisers research on possible competitors to determine their USP’s validity and sustainability. Similarly, check out your rivals and figure out how you can get a leg up on them through pitch deck design. Having a unique and professional-looking deck is a surefire way to impress and engage.
3. It Displays a Strong Hook to Reel Them In
As we’ve discussed before, having the facts is only one part of getting your pitch done. It’s the same with your USP. Flex your creative muscles to craft what you bring to the table into a communicable, understandable, and sellable business proposal.
Package what you must share with your potential investors into a novel idea, and you’ll have the main ingredients to success.
Conclusion
Before you start selling your product, make sure that your product can sell itself.
Pinpointing your USP and fleshing it out requires some intensive research and inspiring creativity. Fortunately, it makes an untold amount of difference in making a simple collection of facts and sentences into an effective marketing strategy.
First, find out how your offer improves your target market’s lives. Second, show them what only you can do, which competitors can’t replicate. Lastly, present your product or service in a creative way. Start applying the concept as an approach to business pitches now and reap the rewards.
References
Belch, G., & Belch, M. (2001). Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective (5th ed.). Boston, Mass.: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.
Reeves, R. (1961). Reality in advertising. New York: Knopf.
“Unique Selling Proposition (USP).” Entrepreneur. Accessed August 24, 2015.
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