Stand out.

A customer chooses between several companies in a couple of minutes. They open three or four websites, skim the first screen and decide whom to call. If everyone says the same thing, the choice comes down to price. A unique selling proposition exists precisely to give a person another reason to choose you.

Below, we look at where to find your advantage, how to turn it into a short phrase and how to check that it works. No theory for theory's sake: only what you can do yourself in a week.

What a USP is and how it differs from a slogan

A USP is a short explanation of why it's more beneficial for the customer to come to you. A slogan creates a mood and helps people remember the name, while a selling proposition offers a specific benefit that can be verified. "We make the world cozier" is a slogan. "We'll assemble your kitchen in one day, or installation is free" is already a proposition.

The two get confused all the time. Companies put a nice-sounding but meaningless phrase on the first screen and are surprised when visitors leave. Nice words aren't bad in themselves; they just solve a different problem.

Three signs of a working USP

A good statement is specific: it contains a timeframe, a number, a condition or a clear result. It matters to the customer, not just to the owner. And it's hard for a competitor to copy by tomorrow morning, because it's backed by real work, equipment, experience or a process.

Why "individual approach" doesn't work

Phrases like this don't work because everyone writes them. Open any web studio directory and scroll through a dozen listings. On every web studio's website you'll see "individual approach," "a team of professionals" and "quality at an affordable price." Readers stop noticing these words by the second listing.

The problem isn't the words themselves but the fact that they prove nothing. Every web development studio is confident in its professionalism, and web studio services look the same in everyone's descriptions. The customer needs signals from which they can draw their own conclusion: timeframes, guarantees, examples, numbers. A real competitive advantage is something that can be verified, not a general promise.

Where to look for your advantage

You need to look in three places: at competitors, at customers and in your own numbers. Usually the advantage already exists; the owner has simply gotten used to it and doesn't consider it special.

Competitor analysis

Write down five to seven companies you're compared with and lay out their promises in a table: price, timeframes, warranty, service, specialization. You'll immediately see what everyone talks about and what they keep quiet about. A free niche in this table is a candidate for differentiating yourself from competitors. We wrote more about how to monitor competitors regularly in our piece on competitor monitoring.

Talking to customers

Regular customers give the most accurate wording. They have already chosen you and know why. Five to ten short phone conversations will give you more than a week of brainstorming in the office.

Which questions to ask

• why did you choose us and not another company;
• whom else did you compare us with, and what didn't you like about them;
• what almost stopped you before buying;
• what would you tell a friend about working with us;
• what problem did you have before you came to us.

Write down the answers word for word. Customers' pain points and their own words later go into website copy and ads with almost no edits.

The company's internal numbers

Look at the average order turnaround time, the share of repeat customers, the return rate, the number of completed projects in one niche. Sometimes a strong advantage is hidden in the sales department's report: for example, you respond to a request in ten minutes, while the market takes half a day. It's important to use only numbers you're ready to back up.

How to formulate a USP: step by step

The statement is made up of three parts: who it's for, what they get and why they can trust you. To avoid drowning in options, go step by step.

1. Define your target audience in one phrase: who buys most often and brings in the most money.
2. Choose one main benefit from those you've found, not five at once.
3. Add proof: a number, a guarantee, a timeframe, a condition.
4. Cut the phrase down to 10-15 words and remove everything that would fit any competitor.
5. Read it aloud to someone outside the company and ask what they understood.

The result should be a value proposition that is clear without explanation. If the wording has to be explained, it's worth rewriting. A USP is closely tied to a company's positioning, so it's useful to also reread our article on how to create a memorable brand.

Examples: weak and strong wording

The difference is easiest to see in comparison. The table shows typical phrases from websites and what they can be turned into.

Note that the strong versions have no superlatives. They don't say "the best"; they describe a condition the customer can verify.

How to check that people notice your USP

You can only check it with real people and real numbers. The opinion of management and the team means little here: you know your business too well.

The most accessible way is to compare two versions in advertising. Run ads with different wording to the same audience and see where the click-through rate is higher and the lead is cheaper. Similarly, you can change the headline on the website's first screen and watch the conversion rate. A fair conclusion requires time and enough clicks, so don't draw conclusions from the first two days.

The second way is to ask your sales managers. If, after the wording changed, customers on the phone started repeating it in their own words, it has reached its audience.

Where to place your USP

The advantage should be where the customer makes the decision: on the website's first screen, in ads, in social media profiles and in the sales manager's script. If it's hidden on the "About us" page, only a handful of people will see it.

Website and first screen

The first-screen headline is the main place for the statement. Below it, give one or two pieces of proof and a clear button. If the website is outdated and doesn't allow you to properly rebuild the first screen, it's sometimes easier to order a new website than to keep patching the old one. At the same time, many people go to a web studio to order a website without thinking through how the company is different, and they get a neat template with the same empty phrases. Wording first, design second.

Advertising and social media

A short ad offer usually grows out of the USP: the same benefit, only even shorter. In SMM, the statement works differently: it isn't repeated in every post but backed up with examples, reviews and customer stories. Those who have long worked in SMM know that SMM promotion without a clear advantage turns into a stream of attractive but identical posts.

It's important that the promise is the same across all channels. If the ad says "delivery in two hours" and the website says "same-day delivery," the customer stops believing both.

When you need outside help

A fresh look is needed when the team has been arguing for months or when there are ten statements and they all seem right. A contractor doesn't know your internal workings, and that's an advantage: they see the company the same way a customer does.

Help is especially useful if you plan to launch in several channels at once. For example, you're about to order SEO, order SMM in parallel and update your website. In this case, it's important that the same advantage is built into the search copy, the posts and the first screen. Work on meaning continues in SEO optimization: keywords and landing page copy should support the same idea. You can't buy SEO as an off-the-shelf product, and that's another reason to settle on your advantage first. If you want to order a website or have decided to order SMM separately, we recommend starting with the wording, so the contractor understands the task right away. We explained how to set that task properly in our article on the brief for a marketing agency.

If you want to work out your advantage together with practitioners, contact epic name. We work in Moscow and across Russia: we help find your point of difference, test it in advertising and build it into your website, search and social media. See how our comprehensive online marketing for companies works, and if you only need search, you can order SEO right away on the website promotion services page.