The basis of a successful strategy is to determine your customer benefit. Put yourself in the position of the target customer and ask yourself what your product brings to the customer. Customer benefit can come from a variety of factors- including price, quality, or service. If your offer has a unique customer benefit compared to the competition, a unique selling point, it can be a significant competitive advantage.
It is important that this customer benefit advantage should be clearly visible and durable. In the next chapter, you will determine positioning of your company.
Customer benefits: What does your product bring?
Before you start defining your corporate strategy, it helps to take another step back and clearly determine your customer benefit… ask yourself what customer benefit you are creating. Many start-ups fail because the customer benefits created either do not exist or are not clearly communicated. Basically, the customer’s use is about asking what your product or service brings to the customer – what benefit does your product give your target customer?
Customer benefit can be created in the following areas:
- Customer benefit Quality: Your product is better
The customer benefit can be that your product is of high quality and can therefore be used reliably over a long holding period. Or your product impresses with a good user-friendliness (design!), has additional functions (technology) or convinces by a long warranty. Image can also be a customer benefit, as certain products give the buyer a good feeling (e.g. luxury goods). - Customer benefit Price: Your product is cheaper
If the price is a decisive factor for your target group, a cheaper offer can increase customer benefit. But also an interesting financing offer or extended payment deadlines can optimize the customer benefit. - Customer Benefits Service & Time: You are more customer-oriented
Comprehensive and competent advice is often a customer benefit that is underestimated. Reliable service and friendly service can also be the reason why a customer chooses your product.
Another customer benefit factor is also becoming more and more important: time. Lower waiting times, shorter delivery times or basic time savings due to the product can be a very important customer benefit (e.g. the main customer benefit of a lawnmower robot is the time saving).
In your business plan, describe the customer benefits or benefits of the offer from your future customer’s perspective – what does the customer benefit from when he or she buys your product? Ideally, in addition to the actual customer benefit, your product also offers a unique, special customer benefit (unique selling point), which you can use as a competitive advantage.
The USP (unique selling point) as your competitive advantage
As a consumer, you usually have the choice between many different products, which usually meet the same customer benefit (e.g. almost all drinks quench the thirst). The question is accordingly whether you, as an entrepreneur, succeed in creating a special customer benefit (unique selling point) in order to be able to distinguish yourself from the competition. With a unique selling point, it is usually easier to gain a significant competitive advantage (example: Red Bull not only quenches thirst, but also gives its consumers wings and provides energy).
Having a special customer benefit and thus a competitive advantage is above all for the quality-oriented corporate strategies (Differentiation or Niche strategy) relevant. In price-oriented corporate strategies, a unique selling point is usually less important and does not necessarily lead to a significant competitive advantage.
For your offer to have a USP real unique selling point, it should have the following characteristics:
- Important for the unique selling point: It must be important
You only have a competitive advantage if the unique selling point is relevant to the customer. A special customer benefit is therefore only a unique selling point if it is significant. - The USP unique selling point must be perceived by the customer!
Only if the customer is convinced of the USP unique selling point and thus of the special customer benefit, there is a competitive advantage. Good marketing can help to highlight the special customer benefit and thus create a unique selling point. - A USP unique selling point should be permanent!
Ideally, your offer has a unique selling point that is not easy and, above all, not immediately copyable. The more permanent the special customer benefit, the more valuable the unique selling point is.
The USP unique selling point is on the one hand important for the corporate strategy, on the other hand, the positioning is also dependent on the special customer benefit (the higher the customer benefit and the unique selling point the more valuable your product should be). Marketing is also strongly oriented towards customer benefit and, in particular, the unique selling point that is usually highlighted in advertising.
The goal is …
….that you clearly show the customer benefits of your offer in your business plan. In a quality-oriented corporate strategy, it is also helpful if your offer has an additional, special customer benefit (unique selling point) that clearly distinguishes your product from the competition and thus gives you a significant competitive advantage.
If you have described the customer benefit and, if applicable, the unique selling point of your business idea, you should be able to determine the second important basis for the corporate strategy, the Positioning, relatively easy to fall.
