The two most important principals of benefit-driven marketing are to give your product a customer-friendly name and speak about your product in your customer’s language.

Who wants to buy a XE750?
First of all, what is an XE750? Is it a car; an all-in-one printer, faxer, scanner; a pacemaker; an MP3 player? Giving your product an ambiguous name makes it hard for your customers to identify its purpose, never mind see the benefit in owning it. Giving the product an obvious name will not only help clients understand it, it will make it easier to buy, more inviting to own, and easier to talk about. If the XE750 is a new, high-definition MP3 player, give it a name that touts it benefit—Harmony, the first high-def MP3 player.

The first, the best, the only…
Carefully scripted messages to your customers and potential customers are the other piece of the puzzle when in comes to benefit-driven marketing. Talk to your audience about how you will make their lives easier and better instead of telling them what you have to offer. Is it a 96 gigabite, high-definition, portable audio MP3 player or is it the “World first high-definition MP3 player that can accommodates your entire music collection of over 15,000 songs”? Direct your message to your customer so they can easily discern the value of your product.

Frequently, companies get lost in the mix because they suffer from internally-focused marketing. Take the time to reevaluate your messages to see if you can offer your customers and potential customers a new and refreshing perspective that has their needs in mind.

To own a concept is to be the brand that comes to mind when you think of a product, service, or idea. Think:
Soft drink—Coca Cola
Job finding—Monster.com
Reliability—Toyota

These “concept” brands do not compete. They are not followers. Their unique selling proposition is so strong that they set the terms the competition must achieve. Being the first, the only, or the best—no other brand comes close to the hold they have on their respective marketplaces. They are innovative, unique, and desirable—model brands that others aspire to become.

These brands’ success is a result of their ability to develop unique selling propositions by identifying unfulfilled, but desired gaps within their marketplace and meeting those needs.

A great example of a unique selling proposition that filled a huge gap in the marketplace was Monster.com—one of the first Internet job seeking services. Monster was able to bring the convenience of the Internet and email to a market that was traditionally based in print—clumsy newspapers, fancy resume paper, and snail mail. Monster also broke geographical barriers—allowing job seekers to search jobs within 10 miles of their house or across the country and made the possibility of finding a job in another city much simpler than it had been in the past.

Monster addressed the needs of both the job seekers and the employers so successfully, there no longer seemed to be any other logical way of doing things.

If having a strong unique selling proposition is so easy, why hasn’t everyone done it? The answer is because its not easy. First you need to identify what that gap is and exploit it with a single minded focus. Not easy for a firm rooted in a set way of doing business. We often refer to it as the Tarzan principal, afraid to completely let go of one vine before you’re sure the next vine will work. Second, few enterprises have the fortitude to stick with an immutable unique selling proposition.

In our current economic environment, it may be a great opportunity to explore developing a concept brand. Business is off and your competitors are spending more time staying afloat than finding the strategy to make them stronger. At the same time, your audience may be ready to hear a new message as their needs evolve.

Recessions bring opportunities. Uncover and market your unique selling proposition to emerge ahead of your competition.