You know that every business should have one and yet still you struggle to find a unique selling point. You can't see any differences between you and your competition and especially not a winning difference. And that’s because businesses can only differ in so many ways.

So you accept it – you are never going to find a killer USP.

You don’t offer your customers anything that they can't get from somewhere else.

You have no way of standing above the crowd.

So, what can you do?

Quite a bit, to be fair.

Every copywriter follows the same simple strategy and you can do the same.

Step 1 – Doing Their Homework

Copywriters don’t pull copy out of anywhere; they do their homework. They research, looking at as much background as they can. They look at:

Marketing material, including mail campaigns, product reviews, press releases, website copy, and anything else they can find;

Technical information, including user guides, technical specs, installation manuals, market research data, patents, and official test data;

Competitors, such as blogs, websites, PPC ads, newspaper ads, sales brochures, and more.

The better you know your competition and the better you know yourself, the easier it will be to find your place.

Step 2 – Asking the Right Questions

A great copywriter will always ask the right questions and they ask a lot of them. It really is the best way of understanding your business and how it can be and is different. Some questions that copywriters ask:

What are the main problems your customers face and how does your product/service solve them?

What are the key features of your products? Which compare against your competition favorably?

Do you provide any standard extras? Perhaps free SEO audits for websites or complimentary training videos?

Do you belong to a trade organization, local trader register, or any Buy With Confidence Scheme?

Now ask yourself these questions and they can help you to find your USP – you might learn something that you hadn’t thought of before.

Step 3 - Playing on Strengths

Next, they start looking for their own angle and the obvious starting point is their strengths. Ask these questions:

Are you faster than the competition? More reliable?

Do you provide special features or services?

Is your brand experience better?

You must be able to back up your claims in your copy otherwise they are not credible. You don’t need to provide reams of statistics or proof, just explain why what you offer is better.

Step 4 – Exploiting Competitor Weaknesses

Back in 1991, a study was published by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, both psychologists. The study was about loss aversion and it proved groundbreaking. It suggested that the fear of loss plays an incredibly powerful role in the choices we make, more so than the thought of gain.

You can use that fear to exploit weaknesses in your competitors, as well as highlighting what pitfalls there could be to purchasing their services and products. If customers do, they will be making a mistake and the only safe thing to do is buy yours.

In part two, we’ll look at a few more strategies to finding your own killer USP.