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    • Action plan

    Defining your USP

    Medium effort

    High impact

    It’s harder than ever for a business to stand out from the crowd. The market is increasingly competitive and businesses need to be able to quickly communicate how their offering is different. Defining your unique selling point (USP) is a great place to start, particularly if you make the most of the different voices within your business.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline
    What's involved? Ways to use this action plan Measuring impact
    1

    Speak to loyal customers to find out what first attracted them to your business and why they continue to buy from you

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Learning about customers’ experiences gives you an external perspective on your business and shows you what your target audience thinks is valuable.

    Creating a customer feedback survey

    Use this customer feedback survey to gauge how customers feel about your product or service and find ways to improve.
    2

    Arrange a workshop to get input from the wider team who often have more exposure to the company’s customer base

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Involving employees at an early stage not only gives you a broader range of ideas about what makes your business unique, but it will help with staff buy-in when it comes to promoting your USP.

    How to run an employee feedback workshop

    Workshops are an effective way of solving problems and getting feedback from employees. Use our step-by-step checklist to run your own successful workshop.
    3

    Make a list of your target audience’s problems and how your business helps solve them

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Customers’ buying decisions are based on the problems they want solved. Identifying how you’ve met customer needs in the past can provide the foundations for your USP.

    4

    Analyse your competitors to nail down the differentiator

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Once you’ve generated a list of ideas from your customers and employees, analysing the strengths and weaknesses of the competition will help you identify what sets you apart.

    How to do a competitive analysis

    A competitive analysis helps businesses to understand who competitors are and what makes them different.
    5

    Define your USP and run it by others to check it resonates

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Whether it’s customers, employees, a focus group or all three, getting feedback on your USP will make sure it’s an accurate representation of what your business does before you start promoting it.

    Developing your unique selling point from scratch

    Use this helpful checklist from marketing agency WrightObara to identify, test and refine your unique selling point (USP).

    Creating a customer feedback survey

    Use this customer feedback survey to gauge how customers feel about your product or service and find ways to improve.

    What can I do with this Action Plan?

    Start this Action Plan

    Add some extra information to this plan and we’ll help you get it done.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline

    Download and print

    Get a printable template for this Action Plan, fill it in with some target dates, and share it with your team. Pin it on the wall where everyone can see it.

    Get the printable Action Plan

    Learning Groups

    We also run Learning Groups on these topics where you can join other leaders tackling the same challenges.

    Find a Learning Group

    How will I know if my action plan is working?

    Customer survey results

    Customer surveys provide feedback on your offering

    Why this metric?

    Customer feedback surveys help you gather more information about which customers are buying from you and why.

    How do I start tracking?

    Include a short online survey in a follow-up email that thanks them for buying from your business. Collect the responses over six months to examine how customers view your business.