What is a unique selling point on the website?
A unique selling point or unique selling proposition (USP) is the essence of what makes your product or service better than competitors.
If you communicate USP clearly and quickly it makes a key difference between getting a potential customer by converting it on your site and not getting anything at all.
Let’s take a deep dive into how can we use this into our advantage and how to properly make it stand out.
Why is USP important?
A unique selling point defines your company’s or brand’s unique position on the market. It's important to know your business well to be able to distinguish yourself from competitors. That way you can highlight what makes you different on a website and use it to your advantage.
It is a crucial part of effective selling, otherwise, your marketing efforts will go unnoticed. Your USP is your key differentiator, the reason your customer will buy from you and an important part of your marketing strategy for attracting new customers.
A USP can also serve internally, can be a focus on remembering what your company’s mission is and a reason behind it, it’s just business 101.
Examples of a good USPs
During our work on the Xiphos website we highlighted three USPs that they have (performance and flexibility, durability, and small size) which make them unique, help them stand out, and can be a decision maker for some users to convert.
Another example is the Express Hail Repair website that we built. They have a lot more USPs which we highlighted on the top of the homepage right after the hero section. They have a very small niche which makes it easier to stand out but even then by highlighting their super fast and affordable services, alongside overall great UX, they increased their conversion rate on a website by an astonishing 40%.
Those are just two examples and they are different for every business, but USPs can fall under three major categories:
- Quality - Superior materials or ingredients, superior craftsmanship
- Price - Lowest prices, free shipping, special offers
- Services - Personalization, great customer service, curated selection of products
For some companies, USP can become a part of their brand and even associated with their name and offers.
How to differentiate USPs per industry
Depending on what companies are trying to sell, different selling points may be relevant.
Here are some tips you can use:
Manufacturing
It can be tough to compete on low prices in this industry because it’s something every company is doing. Therefore is important to offer compelling USPs to set you apart:
- Offer faster and safer shipping
- Lower prices on bulks or tiers
- Products that are hard to come by, like local distribution
Travel
Travel companies also find it difficult to compete for the same reasons the manufacturing industry is having, but here are a few tips to help you distinguish yourself from competition:
- Delayed payment options
- Private transfers
- Dedicated app for convenient travel arrangements and push notifications
- Outstanding and fast customer support
Retail
In this industry typical customers are looking for USPs around products and services and here is what you can do to stand out:
- Have unique products, but if they are not that unique try getting ones that are hand-crafted, durable or environmentally friendly
- Offer payment plans and/or free returns
- Personalized goods
Why selling points needs to be “unique”
In this digital age where everything is accessible to everyone everywhere, you just have to stand out from the crowd. The best way to approach this is to decide on who your customers are by creating a user persona, find their problems and try solving them.
Once you do that, you’ll have a product or service that is hard to beat. Even if you have competitors at this point, it’s a small niche where you can compete much easier and find your spotlight.
Ways to communicate your USP on a website
There are many ways a company can communicate USP to their audience, but here are a few ways you can do that:
- Present it as a tagline on a landing page or as a bullet list on a product page
- Improve websites’ SEO ranking for key terms that are your USP to generate visibility on search engines
How to test your unique selling point
We’re never certain if our USP is good and if it’s what our customers would like to see, not to mention buy, therefore it is important to test our claims.
One of the ways to test it is by conducting a simple A/B test. By testing different USPs on a landing page against each other.
There are many platforms where you can perform A/B tests, but here are some of the ones we’re using for our purposes:
