Marketing is a very large gray area in any company. It’s a delicate mix of art, psychology, and creativity. Anyone remotely creative thinks that they know how to market, and since marketing is a very fun job to have most people want to do it. If the marketing department in a corporation announces to their coworkers that they need help on a big advertising campaign coming up with fun ideas to enhance a particular project, chances are many people will come running. However if the accounting department announces to their coworkers that they need help going through receipts and past invoices, suddenly the ‘cube farms’ go silent.

There are many qualities that separate a decent advertising professional from a great advertising professional: the ability to understand consumer psychology; diverse creativity; abstract thinking methods; and so fourth. So what happens if you can’t find a great advertising professional and you’re stuck with a group of mediocre ones? How do you slide under the wire and keep your marketing department producing results? You have to understand you Unique Selling Point (USP).

For anyone who attended business school or has a degree in marketing, you may find this article boring and elementary. Well, to someone who has a degree in business or marketing, it is. However several people climb the corporate ladder with no such degree and haven’t been taught about USPs – or, it has simply been so long since college, that you could use a refresher. A USP is essentially the service or product (or something about your service or product) that separates you from your competitors. Since this unique thing about what you offer is your best advantage, then your marketing campaigns should be geared toward featuring that unique thing.

Many people tend to confuse what defines a competitor. Most people would say that a competitor is another business or person that provides the same service or product that you provide. That is incorrect. A competitor is another business or person that provides the same service or product that you provide that is of comparable quality and price as your product or service. For example, if you sell sunglasses made of plastic for $15.00, your competitor is not the company next door that sells upscale sunglasses for $350.00. Your competitor is in fact the other company down the street that also sells sunglasses made of plastic for $15.00. You and the upscale company next door have completely different products and are not competing for the same customers; whereas the company down the street has the same type of product as you and is competing with you for the same customers.

So, now that the definition of a competitor has been outlined, it’s time to find your USP. It’s best to look at the products or services that your direct competitors are providing and compare and contrast your products with their products. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask yourself why you would give your business to your company rather than to the other company? Your USP could be a slightly lower price, a slightly better quality product, extra products, an extra feature, better customer service, or extra goods (for example, giving away a free bottle of sunglasses cleaner with the purchase of your plastic $15.00 sunglasses). When you finally discover your USP, try to make that unique quality the focus of your marketing department’s attention. In other words, get your biggest advantage in front of your customer’s eyes.