Does Your Tutoring Service have a USP – Unique Selling Proposition?

One key to marketing success that many small businesses often overlook is development of a Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

What is a USP? It’s the one thing about the product or service you’re offering that differentiates you from your competition. And it answers the primary question of all prospective customers – “Why should I buy from you?’.

For FedEx, the USP (for a long time) was “when it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”. For Netflix, the USP was “no more trips to the video store, no more late fees, and no cost to return DVDs”.

Your USP should be something that sets you apart from all competitors in your category. It could be price, it could be product details, it could be service and support, it could even be a guarantee. Whatever your USP is, make sure that it’s truly unique, hard to imitate, and powerful enough to capture the attention of your target audience.

Once you develop your Unique Selling Proposition, you’ll find that everything else in your business will fall in place to support it. As you’ve seen from the USP’s of FedEx adn Netflix a true USP can be incorporated easily into your tag line or sales motto sometimes referred to as a positioning statement, killing two creative tasks with one stone.

Effective Brand Positioning is contingent upon identifying and communicating a brand’s uniqueness, differentiation and verifiable value. It is important to note that “me too” brand positioning contradicts the notion of differentiation and should be avoided at all costs. This type of copycat brand positioning only works if the business offers its solutions at a significant discount over the other competitor(s).

Generally, the brand positioning process involves:

1. Identifying the business’s direct competition (could include players that offer your product/service amongst a larger portfolio of solutions)
2. Understanding how each competitor is positioning their business today (e.g. claiming to be the fastest, cheapest, largest, the #1 provider, etc.)
3. Documenting the provider’s own positioning as it exists today (may not exist if startup business)
4. Comparing the company’s positioning to its competitors’ to identify viable areas for differentiation
5. Developing a distinctive, differentiating and value-based positioning concept
6. Creating a positioning statement with key messages and customer value propositions to be used for communications development across the variety of target audience touch points (advertising, media, PR, website, etc.).

Here at Oases we use, Let oases run the data so you can run your business! What’s your USP and positioning statement and does it truly sell your services?

The Tutor Report is sponsored by Oases Online, the only tutoring and after school management program that will run private pay and government/agency billed programs side by side, keeping all of your data in one place.

Let Oases run the data so you can run your business!

Check out the Features then request a demonstration of what Oases can do for your business.