Long copy works! Better copy for your leaflets in 7 easy steps. Part 5: The Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Also known as the unique selling position, the USP is often one of the most misunderstood elements of a good sales leaflet. It’s what separates your product or service from your competitors. Let’s take a quick look at some unique selling propositions for a product itself:

1. Lowest Price – If you can produce your product cheaper than anyone else then flaunt it. Personally, I’m not convinced about selling on price because someone can always come along and sell for cheaper. Then you’ll need a new strategy.



2. Superior Quality – If your product outperforms your competitor’s or is made with higher quality materials, it’s a good bet that you could use this fact to your advantage. For example, compare Marks and Spencer’s food to their competitor’s. From the packaging to the wholesome superior ingredients, the quality is evident. It may cost a little more than their competitor’s, but for their market, it sells extremely well.



3. Superior Service – If you offer superior service over your competitor’s, people will buy from you instead. This is especially true with certain markets that are all about service: mail order, beauty salons, tradesmen etc.



4. Exclusive Rights – If you can legitimately claim that your product is protected by a patent or copyright, licensing agreement, etc., then you have a winner for exclusive rights. If you have a patent, everyone must buy it from you.

Ok, what if your product or service is no different than your competitor’s? I would disagree, because there are always differences. The trick is to turn them into a positive advantage for you. You want to put your ‘best foot forward’. So what can we do in this scenario?

One way is to present something that your company has devised internally that no other company does. Look, there’s a reason why computer store ‘A’ offers to beat their competitor’s price for the same product by X%. If you look closely, the two packages are never exactly the same. Company ‘B’ offers a free scanner, while company ‘A’ offers a free printer. Or some other difference. They’re comparing apples to oranges. So unless you find a company with the exact same package (it’s doubtful… they’ve seen to that), you won’t be able to cash in.

But what if you truly have the same widget for sale as the guy up the road? Unless your prospect knows the inner workings of both your and your competitor’s product, including the manufacturing process, customer service, and everything in-between, then you have a little potential creative licensing here. But you must be truthful.

For example, if I tell my readers that my product is bathed in steam to ensure purity and cleanliness (like the cans and bottles in most beer manufacturing processes), it doesn’t matter that Joe’s Beer up the road does the same thing. That fact that Joe doesn’t advertise this fact makes it a USP in your prospect’s eyes.

Want some more USP examples?

• I’m the only car mechanic that will buy your car if you’re not 100 percent satisfied with our work.


• Delivered in 30 minutes or it’s on us!


• No other furniture company will pay for delivery.


• Our recipe is so secret, only three people in the world know it!

As with most ways to boost copy response, research is the key with your USP. Sometimes your USP is obvious, for example if you have a patent. Other times you must do a little legwork to discover it (or shape it to your target market).

Here’s where a little persistence and in-person selling really pays off. Let me give you an example to illustrate what I mean:

Suppose your company sells beanbag chairs for kids. So you, being the wise marketeer that you are, decide to sell these beanbags in person to prospects before you start writing the copy for your leaflet. After completing twenty different pitches for your product, you discover that 75 percent of those you visited asked if the chair would eventually leak. Since the chairs are for kids, it’s only logical that parents would be concerned about their youngster jumping on it, rolling on it, and doing all things possible to break the seam and… ‘spill the beans’.

So when you write your copy, you make sure you address that issue: “Our super-strong beanbag chairs are triple-stitched for guaranteed leak-proof performance.”

Now lets move onto the most critical part of your leaflet... the headline. If you’re going to make a single change to boost your response rate the most, focus on your headline (you do have one, don’t you?).

Why? Because five times as many people read your headline than your copy. Quite simply, a headline is an ad for your ad. People won’t stop their busy lives to read your copy unless you give them a good reason to do so.

The headline is the most important part of your leaflet.

Why? Because your response can increase dramatically by not only adding a headline, but by making that headline almost impossible to resist for your target audience. And those last three words are important. Your target audience. For example, take a look at the following headline:

Announcing…New High-Tech Gloves Protect Wearer Against Hazardous Waste

...News, and a benefit.

Will that headline appeal to everyone? No, and you don’t care about everyone. But for someone who handles hazardous waste, they would sure appreciate knowing about this little gem.

That’s your target audience, and it’s your job to get them to read your leaflet. Your headline is the way you do that. If you have more than one target audience – in this example your gloves might also be popular amongst gardening professionals – then create a separate leaflet and target that audience separately.

Ok, back to headlines… now where do you find great headlines?

You look at other successful leaflets and adverts that have stood the test of time. You look for ads that run regularly in magazines and leaflets which drop through your letterbox time and again. How do you know they’re good? Because if they didn’t do their job, the advertiser wouldn’t run them repeatedly.

Ok, now how could you adapt some of those headlines to your own product or service? Your headline should create a sense of urgency and be as specific as possible. Speak directly and only to your target audience.

The appearance of your headline is also very important. Make sure the type used is bold and large, and different from the type used in the copy. Generally, longer headlines tend to out perform shorter ones, even when targeting more ‘conservative’ prospects.

It should go without saying that if you take inspiration from other successful headlines, you adapt them to your own product or service. Never copy a headline (or any other written copyrighted piece of work for that matter) word for word. Copywriters and ad agencies are notoriously famous for suing for plagiarism. And rightfully so.

Long copy works! Better copy for your leaflets in 7 easy steps:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7