How to Craft a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) with Examples

Customers have many options when choosing products and services. In the age of the internet, finding solutions is almost limitless. In fact, one of the top five sales challenges that sales reps face is competition with other businesses, according to our State of Sales report.

A unique selling proposition (USP) is your key to standing out in a saturated market. We'll show you how speaking to your customers' unique needs can attract and guide them directly to you.

A unique selling proposition (USP) is what makes your product or service stand out from the competition, giving customers a compelling reason to choose you. It highlights the benefits of your product that are different — and better — from others on the market.

Your USP should clearly communicate your brand values, value proposition, and how you solve customer pain points. An effective USP can help your sales team reach more buyers and close more deals.

A clear USP is essential to distinguishing yourself from competitors and appealing to more customers. If you don't stand out in the market, you'll miss opportunities to connect with potential buyers, grow your customer base, and increase your revenue.

A USP benefits your business internally and externally. It transparently tells your customers what you do and how you do it so they can make an informed buying decision. Internally, a USP informs your sales strategies, marketing messages, and sales channels. A USP becomes part of your solution-selling technique and can be a powerful sales enablement tool.

USPs also influence your product development — especially in tech and software. Since their inception, USPs have evolved to meet the changing needs of customer expectations in the digital age. While functional benefits are still important, standing out now relies more on the user experience (UX) you provide and other factors that matter to customers, like integration capabilities and data security.

A good USP sets you apart from the competition. It’s a problem-solving statement that grabs your target audience’s attention. The best unique selling propositions should be:

• Concise: Make it clear, brief, and straightforward.
• Distinctive: Your USP needs to highlight a specific feature, benefit, or approach that can't be found elsewhere, providing concrete evidence of its uniqueness.
• Customer-focused: Address your customer's pain points and demonstrate how your product provides the solution.
• Authentic: You're not selling just to sell. Your product or service was designed specifically to help your customers' businesses grow or improve their personal lives.
• Guiding: A strong USP is a compass for your business. It is a simple, distilled statement that clarifies who you are, who you serve, and your ultimate reason for being, ensuring every decision you make aligns with your core mission.
• Actionable: Your USP should serve as the foundation for your marketing and communication strategies. It should be a clear, practical statement that directs how you present your product or service and how you articulate its value to your ideal customer.

Ensuring your USP meets these guidelines will help you clearly convey your product or service's value to your customers. When you often only have seconds to capture your customer's attention, pinning down these details can help you gain a competitive edge by clearly explaining how you can help them.

Crafting a USP is simple in theory, but it takes hard work to get it right. You must first define who you serve, what you do, and how you do it. Here are the three guiding questions I use to create a unique selling proposition.

This is your target audience. Your USP will not fit everyone. Instead, it should be geared toward a specific customer with a unique set of needs. And that's where buyer personas come in.

First, create your buyer personas. A buyer persona is an excellent way to bring a fictional representation of your ideal customer to life. Using existing customer data in your CRM and research about your competition's customers, you can start to see a clearer picture of your ideal customer's demographics — job titles, company size, education, industry, region, etc.

Dig deeper with surveys and interviews to discover what your customers do and what makes them tick, including their obstacles and motivations. The more detail you can add to your persona, the more effective your USP will be at resonating with them.

Next, conduct market research. The challenges your customers face aren't created in a vacuum. The world constantly presents us with innovations and obstacles we must adapt to. What conditions must exist for your buyer persona to look to you to solve their problem? I suggest looking at things from the following perspectives:

• Macro level: Pay attention to what's currently impacting the world: upcoming elections, wars, the climate crisis, the stock market, and popular trends among different generations.
• Micro level: Look at factors influencing the key industries and geographies where you operate. For example, AI's impact on business operations and productivity.
• Customer's business level: Try to predict how your customers will be impacted by macro and micro events. This will give you an idea of any new opportunities or challenges they might be preparing for — or not. These are considerations you can use to communicate how your solution is the best option for their immediate needs.

Use market-reporting methods like interviews, surveys, and focus groups to gather your intel. You can email customers with a survey link or outsource to a research firm where experts will collect the data and analyze the answers for you.

This is the function of your product or service. Regardless of what you sell, you have to differentiate it from others in the marketplace. Your USP should articulate this succinctly, and your buyer persona's pain points should take center stage.

Some questions to ask yourself in this phase are:

• Why do they need what we sell?
• How does it improve their life?
• What challenges does it solve, and what does it help them do better?

When coming up with your answers, be sure to compare them with your closest competitors. You want to ensure you're using different language, highlighting unique benefits, and truly setting yourself apart in a way that will resonate with your target audience.

Here is where you describe how your solution works. I recommend focusing on the ICOs — issues, challenges, and opportunities — your product or service solves to answer this question. You can use data-backed case studies and testimonials to communicate your message or creative marketing campaigns to tell stories that connect and empathize with your ideal buyers' challenges and desires.

Now that you've thought about your ideal buyer and what you do, it's time to connect customer problems to your solutions. You know the competition is fierce. So, focus on what sets you apart — your product's unique strengths and benefits. Map out your product solution with a matrix. Place your buyer's challenges, your product solution, and your competitor's solution next to each other. Pinpoint the detail that differentiates you from your competition and alleviates your customer's pain points. Then, highlight that feature and confidently share why your solution is the winning option.

As you map out your product or service selling points, it's easy to get lost in the details. Your offering will have many benefits, but you can't lose sight of what makes you stand out from the crowd. When crafting a USP, try to avoid:

• Vague language: Surface-level descriptions won't get you anywhere. Keep your language concrete and specific. Use examples. Instead of saying, "We offer high-quality products and services," provide clear details that distinguish you from competitors. For example, "Our CRM will optimize your sales planning and help you close more deals using AI for sales."
• Overcomplicating your solution: Customers want to know how you'll solve their challenges. Don't waste time explaining how your product was developed or the complex systems behind it. For example, businesses seeking a CRM want to know how you'll help their sales reps close deals faster. They're not necessarily interested in the development stages of the software.
• Emphasis on features and functions: Your product might have many features, but what truly makes it unique? Concentrate on how it will address your customer's challenges.
• Trying to please everyone: Don't try to appeal to the whole world. Define a specific audience so you can craft a message that truly resonates.
• Buzzwords and industry jargon: Your customers are smart. They recognize buzzwords and jargon like “synergistic,” “multi-platform,” and “scalable solutions” all too well. Strive to sound authentic and approachable, as if you're chatting over coffee rather than trying to sell something.

The best course is to keep your USP simple, benefits-oriented, and specific. Let's look at some real-life examples to see how they get the job done.

The creation of your USP will vary depending on your industry. Remember to consider who you serve, what you do, and how you do it. Your language should align with your target audience's demographic. Here are a few USP examples from three industries to inspire you when developing your own:

• The company: An active shoe brand
• Who they serve: Busy professionals who are on their feet all day (such as service industry and essential workers)
• What they offer: An easy and modern slip-on design, so you don't need to bend down to put on or tie your shoes
• Their USP: "On-the-go comfort and style that won't slow you down."

• The company: A CRM sales software provider
• Who they serve: Sales teams who want to optimize their productivity and personalization efforts
• What they offer: AI sales agents that help you personalize at every touch point, maximize engagement, and increase productivity with sales automation
• Their USP: "Get back to selling and close more deals — let AI and automation do the rest."

• The company: A rideshare service
• Who they serve: Traveling individuals and businesses with delivery needs
• What they offer: Convenient ride reservations and contactless delivery for everyday essentials
• Their USP: "Wherever you're going, whatever you need, we'll handle the ride."

Effectively convey your unique selling proposition by defining the solutions your product or service provides. You can create a compelling USP by:

• Tailoring your message to each stage of the buyer's journey: At the awareness stage, your message should be a broad hook that grabs their attention and introduces the problem you solve. As they move through the funnel, you can provide more detailed information, case studies, and proof points that directly address their specific concerns and make your unique value proposition the clear choice.
• Selecting optimal distribution channels: A USP isn't just a general marketing message—it's the core reason a customer should choose you over a competitor. If you communicate your USP on a channel where your target audience isn't active, your message gets lost.
• Offering concrete proof: Don't just claim your USP — prove it. Use testimonials, case studies, and quantifiable data from satisfied customers to show how your product or service delivers on its unique promise.
• Measuring and adapting: Your USP is a living part of your business. Use sales analytics and direct feedback from your sales team to gauge how well your USP is resonating with your audience. Are they mentioning it in conversations? Is it a key factor in their decision to buy? Use these insights to refine how you communicate your USP, ensuring it remains relevant and compelling to your customers' evolving needs.

A solid USP speaks to your customer's needs and gives you a competitive edge. Think about what's affecting and influencing your customers' lives: What macro and micro events are occurring that your product or service can solve? Then, concisely share what you do and how you do it — pointing out how your product differs from the other options out there. Your core vision will remain the same, but your ability to pinpoint and communicate your product or service's unique benefits, especially as they evolve, will help you guide customers right to you.