How to develop a Strong USP of your financial business   

USP or the (Unique Selling Point) is that concept in marketing which can speed up your business growth in a small span of time. Now the matter of fact is how you can use this concept to develop your marketing strategy. Today the competition in entire financial industry is very stiff, be it Stock Broking, Investment advisory, Wealth Management, Research or Fund Management, Insurance, NBFC or any other financial product. Every brand is trying to get an edge over the other.

All you need is a small break and rethink on your strength areas and unique value your are giving to your customers, which is absolutely yours and no one only other than you can deliver in the market to gain the maximum market share.

Not reaching to any conclusion…..

So, let’s get in to the details of something in a better manner to get a better insight about this concept and its implementation.

What is the USP of your brand?    

It is the USP that makes your brand different from the other. When you deliver the products and services that are different from your competitors and is unique from them then this creates a USP of your brand.

The USP of your brand can be of anything it may be the Price of your products, an Innovative service experience that you deliver or it may be any Innovative technology that you deliver through your products that may make you the first mover in the market.

Few Examples from Financial Industry

Zerodha – With Rs. 20/trade, the aim was to collect price sensitive customers which happens to be traders with more transaction volume

Motilal Oswal – Solid Research. Solid advice. Only suggest their focus on Investors who are put right advice above the price.

Kuvera – Direct MF platform focusing on Tech Savvy Self enabled Customers

Why do you require creating the USP of Your brand?   

Most of the time people hear about many messages that the people are bombarded with. They cannot evaluate the services as per the needs of the customers.

A strong selling proposition that is well communicated and clear can help your brand to gain the maximum market share. A well crafted USP can position your brand strongly in the market. This will give an edge to your brand and will also define your potential that why you are different and unique compared to your competitors.

Or to simply say USP helps a simple sms or email to get attention and opened by a potential customer within the crowd of other messages.

How you can find Your USP?   

If you want to find your USP then you must focus in knowing your competition, your industry and your target market.

Step 1 : Knowing your target audience:-  

When you know your target audience then you can create the USP of your brand very easily. In this process you need to address three specific things.

• First why people should buy from you?
• What extra you are providing to them?
• How are you different from your competitors in terms of your products, services, prices or creating the trustworthiness for your brand?

In order to know the answer of all these questions your need to gather information and the data from the customers feedback, from your friends and from your family members to deliver the right services as per the need of the situation.

Step 2: What is your competitive advantage?    

You need to study all your competitors well, after that you need to gather the information about the services they are providing to their customers.

• Do a market research in order to understand that who is the market leader and why they are successful.
• Brain storm the fact that which services they are not providing and what you can give new to your customers that are not there in the market before. This can help you to gain a strong competitive advantage over your competitors.

Step 3 : Observe the industry trends    

You need to figure out the key trends of the industry. What your customers need and what they are searching for in the market? Every business operates in an ever-changing situation you need to understand in advance that which change in your service pattern or product delivery can help you to win the maximum market share.

You just need to consider the current trends and the issues that are important for the next five years.

Step 4 : Identifying few alternatives that seems most suitable

Once you complete the above steps, you will be well aware about your SWOT and Industry scenario. It is now a decision making time. Foresee yourself with changing landscape in the industry and prepare a vision for your business. Few statements could look like

To be leader in research catering to high value customers

To be spread across the length and breadth of the country catering to a million customers

Now basis this identify few alternatives that may help you reach the closest to the vision. A right alternatives should fall within the blue area of the below image.

No need to be disheartened, you may not be perfect even in the selected alternatives but you are better than most other players.  Once these areas or activities are identified, these USP areas need an extra extra attention. Start aligning your resources like systems, capex, people, other capabilities along these selected alternatives and start moving.  You may not be the best in the Industry today however you focused approach will surely take you towards that. Remember, Rome was not built in a day.

Step 5 : Refining and testing your USP    

Collect the feedback from your customers at regular interval that will help you to shape up your USP in the right direction.

• What is your business all about?
• Who are your target audience?
• The most important compelling benefit you offer and how this benefit can affect your customers?
• How you can make parity with your services and your promise with your customers?

Building a USP is not about a day job but it takes ages to build upon. So getting started in a right direction is most important.

Side effects of building a USP

Skewness in Customer behavior

Normally when you start with a USP, only a select set of customer gets attracted towards that thus leading to a base of similar type customer getting coagulated with your business. Like discounted pricing USP will bring price sensitive customers only while Long term Research USP will bring Passive Investors.

Ignoring other avenues

While developing USP, a major chunk of resources gets diverted towards that leading to low prioritization to other business avenues. This is absolutely fine provided you are clear that your USP will bring upon the desired results in terms of success parameters.