Developing A Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
The purpose of a Unique Selling Proposition is to sum up why consumers should purchase from you rather than others. Written in sentence form, it should be brief, succinct, and compelling enough to persuade consumers to give you a try. Much of the content of your USP is likely to be derived from your Mission Statement and Sustainable Competitive Advantage; but this statement must contain strong marketing content. In today’s competitive environment, your business will thrive only if your marketing succeeds in cutting through the clutter and noise that bombards consumers daily, so that you can position your studio as the best choice . . . the only choice. This is where your USP comes in. Compelling ads put forward a simple proposition to the consumer that says: “Buy this product and you will receive these specific benefits.” Your marketing will be more effective if you develop a clearly articulated USP for each product line you promote—one that sums up the benefits that consumers can get from you. This summation should be set within a context that stresses:
- Uniqueness: When your benefits are not easily obtained from other providers in your market, then your USP will position you as the most logical choice.
- Selling: Your benefits should be stated in a way that persuades consumers that your products and services are highly desirable.
- Proposition: Remember that your USP is a proposal for clients to use your services.
The following steps will help you to create a compelling USP:
Step 1
List every possible advantage the consumer can receive from your overall business or individual product line.
Step 2
Narrow down this list by applying the following questions to each benefit:
- Will my prospects perceive this benefit as a true advantage?
- Is this benefit strongly differentiated from what my competitors are offering?
- Have I adequately described the benefit in terms of its value?
- Does this benefit solve a problem for the consumer or fill a “performance gap” in the market?
- Will my prospects believe in the validity of this benefit?
- Will my description of this benefit create a desire on the part of my prospects to actually purchase from me?
Step 3
Narrow your list again to the three strongest benefits of owning your products—especially those that from the consumer’s point of view will solve a problem, fill a need, or represent emotional or financial value. Each benefit should be stated in terms compelling enough that it could be used as an advertising headline. Remember to look at these benefits from the consumer’s point of view so they perceive your products as “must-have” items—especially as compared to what is sold by your competitor! If you have trouble determining what consumers value or what makes them buy from you instead of a competitor, turn to your best source of information: your clients! They will provide you with priceless information if you just ask.
Step 4
When possible, create a sense of urgency in your USP and relieve the natural skepticism of consumers by offering proof of satisfaction or offering a satisfaction guarantee as part of your statement.
Step 5
Write your USP as a short paragraph that includes your three strongest benefits and any other brief, compelling statements that might persuade prospects to give your business a try. Ruthlessly edit out any jargon or generalities. Use unambiguous, crisp nouns and adjectives and expressive verbs to create statements that will hold meaning for the prospective clients you are targeting.
Step 6
Condense your USP into a single compelling sentence. This will be hard to do, but the exercise is likely to help you determine what words and thoughts are most useful in creating a tag line or slogan for your product line or studio identity.
Step 7
Make sure you can deliver on any promises made in your USP!
Step 8
Integrate your USP into all levels of your marketing . . . from printed materials and Internet text to conversations with clients and promotional campaigns.
Step 9
Review the list of benefits identified in steps 2 and 3, as these might be useful as the basis for future marketing campaigns.
Following is an example of a Unique Selling Proposition for Persnickety Pet Portraits:
Unique Selling Proposition
Through our unmistakable expertise in photography, our comprehensive knowledge
of pet behavior, and our proven ability to earn the respect of our clients, it is our
pleasure to honor the compelling bond between pets and the people who love them
by creating personalized decorative artworks designed to touch the heart and warm
the home.
The Professional Photographer's Guide to Marketing Success
by Ann K. Monteith.
Categorized In:
quick marketing tips
Establishing A Sustainable Competitive Advantage
The purpose of creating a Sustainable Competitive Advantage is to summarize how the business intends to survive against competition over time. A Sustainable Competitive Advantage is derived from an organization’s Core Competencies—those areas of specialized expertise that:
- Provide specific consumer benefits.
- Are difficult for competitors to imitate.
- Are capable of developing new products and services.
Core Competencies typically are thought of in terms of things your company can do better than your competitors. When a core competency yields a long-term advantage, it helps to support the company’s Sustainable Competitive Advantage. Because a company’s Sustainable Competitive Advantage is distilled from Core Competencies, it pinpoints the reasons why a business is likely to survive against its competition over time. These reasons should be easy to understand, as they often form the basis of key selling points in promotional copy. Core Competencies typically are expressed as a list of bullet points.
Following is the Sustainable Competitive Advantage statement for Persnickety Pet Portraits and the Core Competencies from which it was derived:
Sustainable Competitive Advantage
- Our photographers are nationally known for their skill and artistry in creating exceptionally pleasing, heartwarming portraits of pets and the people who love them.
- We understand why pets are so important to the lives of our clients because we are pet lovers too.
- We are experienced dog handlers, and we understand cat psychology.
- We create custom heirloom-quality portrait art rather than cutesy calendar-style photos.
- The studio and grounds are totally pet-friendly.
- Our business has grown through the referral of satisfied clients.
- Something WONDERFUL is always happening at Persnickety!
Core Competencies:
- We enjoy a national reputation, having displayed at AKC’s Westminster Kennel Club show and having created the 100th anniversary cover for the AKC magazine.
- We are experienced dog handlers.
- We possess classic posing and lighting skills.
- We have the ability to empathize with pet lovers.
- We have an unusually deep knowledge base of dog breeds and cat psychology.
- We are well versed in the history of animals in art and relevant compositional styles.
- Our location and grounds are unusually pet-friendly.
- We have a long-standing reputation for pleasing clients
- We have a demonstrated ability to run a profitable business.
- We possess a strong desire to create “fun” activities for pet lovers.
The Professional Photographer's Guide to Marketing Success
by Ann K. Monteith.
Categorized In:
quick marketing tips
Once you have done the hard work necessary to craft your business concept, select your target market, and establish your marketing advantage, you are ready to clarify your market focus. The most straightforward way to do this is through the creation of three key identity components for each product line:
- A Mission Statement
- A Sustainable Competitive Advantage
- A Unique Selling Proposition
Because the market segments that a single studio serves can be so different, it is wise to create these statements for each market segment. Doing so is difficult work, but it will pay off in terms of the quality of the marketing that flows from them.
Creating A Mission Statement
The purpose of a Mission Statement is to help the business stay on course. Well-managed organizations look to the company’s Mission Statement when approaching strategic decisions by asking: Will this action be consistent with our Mission?
Most Mission Statements take the form of a brief paragraph that directly addresses three elements (in any order):
- The Purpose: What opportunities you address.
- The Business: What you do to address these needs.
- The Values: What principles or beliefs guide your work.
The best Missions Statements are those that are:
- Easy to understand.
- Free of jargon or wordiness.
- Appealing and convincing.
- Brief enough to be easily repeated by employees of this market segment.
Bear in mind that it is far easier to craft a Mission Statement for each of your major product lines if you have done a thorough job of completing the activities suggested in the first three chapters of this Guide.
Following is a Mission Statement for Persnickety Pet Portraits that includes a parenthetical explanation of each of its components:
Mission Statement
Our mission is to reflect the joy pets bring to the lives of our clients (the purpose) through personalized, decorative art and accessories (the business) that honor the compelling bond between pets and the people who love them (the values).
The Professional Photographer's Guide to Marketing Success
by Ann K. Monteith.
Categorized In:
quick marketing tips
The Importance Of Defining Your Approach To Hospitality Branding
The term “hospitality branding” has evolved from the recognition of smart marketers that quality products and competent customer service are no longer sufficient to attract and retain clients. When today’s savvy consumers purchase custom products, they expect to do so within the context of an interesting, pleasant or exciting experience. Creating a viable brand today is as much about the courtesy you provide and the appreciation you express to clients as it is about providing them with compelling products. To assure that you are doing your best in this vital service area, list specific ways that you intend to provide clients with hospitality and the ways in which you expect to create a memorable client experience through all aspects of your dealings with them. Following is an example of Persnickety Pet Portraits hospitality branding activities:
- At each session provide for the needs and comfort of the pet by offering water and providing a place to groom and exercise the pet.
- Surprise dog owners with a Persnickety pet bandana, then create a few extra images with the bandanna to post on the studio’s website or blog.
- After the session, present a goodie bag for the pet.
- Make the preview session an event by serving appropriate refreshments.
- When the order is completed, provide the client with the studio’s choice of a 4x5 portrait attached to a “Preview” note card to take home and enjoy until the finish portraits are ready.
- When clients come to pick up their finished images, present them with an unexpected gift such as wallet images or a collection of note cards featuring the pet.
The Professional Photographer's Guide to Marketing Success
by Ann K. Monteith.
Categorized In:
quick marketing tips
Whether your business has operated for many years or is just starting up, the place that it occupies in the market is based on how well you have positioned the business through your marketing activities and the word-of-mouth reputation generated by your clients. Achieving a favorable market position begins with a general understanding of your competition’s strengths and weaknesses, where you stand in the market today, and three key elements that will form the basis of your market-positioning efforts:
- Your artistic style
- Your product focus
- Your approach to hospitality branding
Assessing your Competition
For each product line that you offer begin by determining how important competition is in that specific market segment. Several key questions to answer are:
- Who are your competitors?
- Do your competitors do a good job of marketing?
- Given the competition, is this a market that you can dominate?
- If you cannot dominate the market, how do you wish to compete?
It is easier to dominate a market when there is little or no competition or if existing competition is not doing a good job of marketing. However, if your market includes one or more good photographers who do a competent job of marketing, then you must decide on the best method of competition to engage in based on the market position you wish to achieve and the time and money you are willing to spend.
Defining Your Place in the Market
Self-assessment is vital in creating a successful marketing plan, but for most business owners self-assessment is very difficult. Just as in life, we rarely see ourselves as others do, and we often underestimate our strengths and hold ourselves back because of our self-perceived weaknesses. Nonetheless, it is vital to identify and understand your business strengths and weaknesses. If necessary, invite several clients or friends to help you look at your business objectively, making sure that you do so in a way that prevents them from telling you what they think you want to hear.
Once your strengths and weaknesses are enumerated, make a list of them, then write sentences or bullet points that turn your strengths and weaknesses into selling features. These selling features will become key elements of your marketing plan, and ultimately they will be used for copywriting. You might expect that strengths would easier to develop as selling features than weaknesses, but it might not be as hard as you think to create great copy from a weakness turned into a strength. Following are some examples of both:
Strength: Excellent posing and lighting skills.
Selling feature: We make you look great!
Strength: Great reputation.
Selling feature: We are proud that our business has grown through the referral of satisfied clients.
Strength: Ability to make people feel at ease.
Selling feature: You’ll love the relaxed, homey environment of our studio. We guarantee that you’ll feel at ease in front of our camera.
Weakness: We don’t have an easy-to-find retail location.
Selling feature: Our picturesque environment offers countless settings for relaxed portraiture.
Weakness: We are brand new to the market.
Selling feature: We’re not your grandma’s portrait studio!
Weakness: No one knows us.
Selling feature: Have you heard the buzz about Smithville’s hip new portrait studio?
Defining Your Artistic Style
It is easier for consumers to recognize photography when it has an identifiable artistic style. Style is often the reason why buyers are attracted to a given art form, and that includes photography. A style usually does not develop overnight, and sometimes it’s not easy for a photographer to describe his or her style so that it can be put into words for marketing purposes. A good place to start the process is to select a collection of your favorite images, or those that clients admire, doing so by product line. Look at those images and begin jotting down words or phrases that describe what you see. If you hit a roadblock, ask clients or friends to help you complete this task. Here’s an example of the process based on the following pet portrait images created by Persnickety Pet Portraits, a division of Countryhouse Studios in Annville, Pennsylvania.
Words and phrases:
- painterly
- heartwarming
- pleasing as wall portraiture
- well composed
- well-regulated, dimensional lighting
- backgrounds and settings appropriate for the pet
Next, turn these words and phrases into sentence form to describe your artistic style, as is done below in portraying the style of the Persnickety Pet Portrait images shown on the previous page. We approach pet portraiture in the same artful manner by which we photograph people: selecting settings, compositional elements and lighting that are appropriate for the subjects being portrayed in order to achieve dimensional art pieces that serve as heartwarming decorative focal points for the home.
The Purpose of Defining Your Product Focus
As important as style is in attracting consumers, you have nothing to sell to them until you create products for them to purchase. One way to look at the difference between style and product focus is this: Style is your wings. Products are your landing gear! Your style can attract attention, but it takes products to get your style into the hands of clients in the form of something they can identify as useful or desirable. Many brilliantly artistic photographers fail in business because they don’t understand this important principle. A good way to assure that your product line has an appropriate product focus is to begin by writing down your key products categories, indicating how those products are used. Following is an example of this exercise for Persnickety Pet Portrait products:
- Individual portraits or collections of portraits that serve as decorative focal points for the home
- Composites that serve as decorative wall accents
- Black-and-white fine-art panels available in variety of sizes and framing options, including canvas wraps
- “Fun Week” specialty sessions and products for wall display and calendar collections
- Virtual paintings for featured wall decor
- Specialty products and accessories to carry, wear, mail and display
You will find that a similar listing for your major product lines will serve as a helpful reminder when performing numerous marketing tasks ranging from creating studio displays to preparing content for marketing materials.
The Professional Photographer's Guide to Marketing Success
by Ann K. Monteith.
Categorized In:
quick marketing tips
Targeting An Appropriate Market
No matter where a business is located, it will succeed only if it has access to suitable clients. Prospective clients of an appropriate market population must have the following characteristics:
- Possess a need or want that you can satisfy efficiently.
- Be willing to consider your products or service.
- Have the financial means to purchase what you sell.
When considering a target market, you should ask these key questions about it:
- Is it large enough for you to do a satisfactory volume of business?
- Is it reachable, and how?
- Is the market segment measurable in terms of the sales results achieved?
If the answer is yes to these questions, then it is a reasonable market to consider.
Defining “Ideal Client” Characteristics
Once you have decided what type of clients are likely to benefit from your business concept, learn all you can about the characteristics of so-called “ideal clients” within each market you wish to attract. For example, if you are targeting upscale parents of young children for a family and children’s portraiture business, the mother is likely to be your ideal client so you’ll want to know the answer to these questions about her behavior:
- Where does she live?
- Does she work outside the home?
- What are her favorite personal activities?
- Where does she shop?
- What professionals, such as obstetricians and pediatricians, does she use?
- What does her husband do?
- Where do her children go to school?
- What are her favorite family activities?
- Does she belong to community organizations?
- Is she active in her church, synagogue or other religious institution?
- How would you describe her personal style?
- What does she value in terms of emotional, physical, social, and material needs and wants?
The more of these characteristics you can identify, the more clues you will have to begin structuring marketing strategies to attract her to your business. The more you know about your ideal client, the easier it will be to put yourself in her position. That way you can recognize what type of products and services she expects and what types of marketing strategies are likely to connect with her. The more you can see through her eyes, the easier it is to assure that your business concept is relevant to her life and that your marketing strategies and materials will succeed.
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Selecting and Understanding Your Target Market Different
Different types of photography attract vastly different types of consumers. The interests of a bridal couple looking for a wedding photographer are poles apart from what is appealing to parents who wish to have their new baby photographed. Marketing experts group consumers into “market segments” according to specific personal, behavioral and purchasing characteristics. Market segmentation allows businesses to target ideal consumers by varying their approach to the Marketing Mix (Product, Promotion, Place and Price) to more nearly address the needs and desires of these specific consumer segments.
Marketing to Women
Market research suggests that businesses get a higher return per customer when they invest their marketing dollars in promotions directed specifically to women. Even though women make up 51 percent of the population, financial experts suppose that they represent roughly 80 percent of the country’s purchasing power because they strongly influence decisions that affect household spending.
A 2006 survey conducted by Professional Photographers of America echoed what most savvy portrait/wedding studio owners have always maintained: Women represent at least 80% of the market for portrait and wedding photography. They are, at the very least, the initiator of the decision to purchase photography. More often than not, they also are involved in the final purchase. Since women represent the largest segment of consumer–driven photography purchasers, it is important to understand that women react to marketing messages differently from their male counterparts. In her 2001 landmark book, You Don’t Understand, Dr. Deborah Tannen brought gender differences in communication style to the forefront of public awareness. Two of Dr. Tanner’s key findings are that “Seventy percent of women learned about a product from someone who owns one,” and “Women consumers speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, rather than a competitive language of status and independence.” Obviously, this understanding must play an important role in how you market to women. Your first task, however, is to identify important characteristics of your ideal consumer—male or female—within the market segment(s) with which you wish to do business.
Defining Market Segments
The practical implication of identifying and understanding specific market segments ultimately is expressed through the marketing strategies a business adopts and the style of marketing materials it uses to execute those strategies. In the marketing materials shown, created by Jeff and Julia Woods of Washington, Illinois, you can see clearly the stylistic difference between the mailer they use to attract prospective wedding clients and the one they direct to high school seniors.
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