PSP

Locally-owned. Great Customer Service. High Quality.

If these are your top three selling points, I may need to take my business elsewhere.

When putting together an ad campaign for a business or brand, I ask my clients to provide me with some bullets to brag about. These three almost always come up. I like to respond with “so what?” and wait for their reaction. What I find more often than not is that these answers tend to cause the client to examine their business a little closer. It isn’t always pleasant, but it is healthy. I ask them to find their PSP, or Principle Selling Point. The simpler they can make it, the better for all of us and their customers.

I read about PSPs shortly after my college graduation and before I began my advertising career. It is merely another acronym that represents the common sense of what we always knew but never assigned a term, and it is one of the few that stuck with me. It comes in handy when my client wants to single out every positive offering, product, and service in the 30-second radio spot.

All I say is, “That’s great and it is true that you are an amazing company, but we only have 20 seconds. The other ten seconds are going to be used by your phone number, website and address. If you want consumers to know you for one thing in 20 seconds, what would that be?” This forces the elimination. I once had a sporting goods client who was adamant about advertising their affordable prices, brand names, wide variety, the locally-owned aspect, their new t-shirts, sports memorabilia, their online store and customer service. When we tried to narrow it down to their PSP, the client sort of had an awakening. He realized that his prices were not as low as his competitors and his customers knew it. He realized that t-shirts, though a new offering, were not his big money makers. They were popular, but the slim margins had them working far too hard for their profit. The sports memorabilia was limited & sporadic throughout the year. However, their customer service was outstanding. Each employee (even the part time college kids) were highly-informed about the products and they offered a demo area within the store unlike any competitor within a 200+ mile radius. Vendors included big name brands who were very involved with the company. The variety of sporting goods was not as wide as originally assessed, but they discovered they had more of a niche than ever assessed. So once we had a truly defined PSP, we were able to put together a campaign that was worth the investment instead of just reaching for commonly used phrases and mundane selling points.

What we did NOT do was target the big three: locally-owned, great customer service and high quality.

With all due respect, these are wonderful traits for a business or brand that I admire, but they are bland and common. These are Norman Rockwellian bragging points that fail to differentiate any restaurant business in New York City from any kid’s lemonade stand in Cut-N-Shoot, Texas.

Furthermore, they imply opposite definitions and showcase what is lacking in the offering. For example, when a business owner leads off his ad with “locally-owned” he thinks he is saying that his business is community-involved, bringing tax money to the neighborhoods, and has small town pride. What his potential customers may be hearing, however, is that he is limited on resources and more than likely has higher prices than competitors. Local pride is important and can be advantageous in many ways, but remember – it is not just what you say, it is how you say it.

I think I am like a lot of folks who try to make a conscious effort of spending money locally when I can. If Best Buy has the same earphones that my hometown electronics store has for $1.50 less, I gladly go to my hometown electronics store. The extra dollar or two is worth it. But when it’s $10 difference and it’s frequent, well…justification is a stretch. Local also does not carry the same weight it once did. I recently waved around a little American flag on the 4^th of July. One of those small, handheld ones for kids that are popular for parties or decoration. As I proudly waved my American flag, I noticed the tiny gold sticker that read “Made in Taiwan.” If customers really decided where they bought their milk, cheese, eggs, underwear, tires, toys, and small American flags based on their love of the local man, then Wal-Mart would not exist. Sadly, price does matter and it is only getting stronger. Shopping local is what some of us refer to as an “after-taste trait,” meaning it is a reason that helps us justify our purchase after we have already made our choice. Or to put it another way, shopping locally isn’t going to get us in our cars to drive across town; but it will make us feel good about our choice as we slide our debit cards through the machine at checkout.

Touting your local status also comes with a word of warning: Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged. If you are a local company on your high horse, you may want to examine your inventory. How many overseas brands do YOU carry? How many wholesalers do you buy from out of market or out of state because their price or reliability or supply is better than domestic/in-state competitors? You cannot fault your customers for lacking loyalty if you are out there price-shopping your self…at least to a degree. If promoting your local-man status is truly important to you, then back it up with some detail of your community-involvement, local school contributions, neighborhood heritage, and annual sponsorships. If nothing else, it never hurts to tout your local employees and their years of service.

If your local coffee shop promotes their customer service above all else, what does this say about the coffee? I have had fantastic service at garage sales, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to show up every Saturday for more items under a dollar. Customer service is one of those aspects that PREVENTS customers from going back; it is rarely the motivation for getting customers in the door. Customers expect a certain level of customer service. We expect your employees to be helpful, informed, and, if not nice, at least polite. Unless you do something really special, don’t harp on it. Instead of bragging about customer service, brag about the type of customer service you offer or why it is important in your business. For example, if you are a local, small hardware company and you cannot compete with Home Depot or Lowe’s on price, customer service has to be your strength. But instead of your ads saying “great customer service,” how about your ads promote the fact that your employees are certified or that they work closely with local builders and contractors? Home Depot offers little workshops on “how-to” projects on Saturdays. If you are bragging about your customer service, be prepared to counter this or one-up this somehow. Otherwise, you may find that price isn’t the only thing the big retailers have on you.

My last pet peeve is the old standby, High Quality. In my PSP consultation, I frequently ask why a customer would shop them instead of their competitor down the street. The response is typically something like, “We have such high quality…”

Who doesn’t have high quality? Who promotes the fact that they have poor quality? No one. There is a reason that Taco Bell’s slogan isn’t “Low Prices - Because Low Quality Means Low Expectations!” They are smarter than that, and you should be, too. Who is to say that your quality is better than brand X’s quality? Your audience assumes you have good quality. They may not know just how good, though, so if you have evidence of this, go for it. List any certifications or awards, discuss the tedious quality-control practices, or describe the natural ingredients involved. Make it stand out. Make it different & unexpected.

The principle selling point (PSP) is just one way to look at this. A sales advisor of sorts, Jonathan Farrington, refers to these as USPs (Unique Selling Points) on his updated site. (See http://www.jonathanfarrington.com/downloads/ebooks/12GPOS_EBook_3.pdf) Other similar approaches are out there, including the “Elevator Sell.” This has many names to it, but essentially this is a scenario that puts you in an elevator with someone of particularly high influence wherein you have just a few seconds to sell this person on you, your business, your brand or your idea. What few words would you use to attract? Much like the PSP, it forces you to simplify and cut out the fluff. It is a great exercise to help confidently assess your concept and your goals.

If you cannot quickly identify your PSP, chances are you need to get back to the basics and set yourself apart. Things look easier and less emotional when you put them down in pen or pencil, so make a pro and con list. Why are your customers coming, leaving, stopping, starting or splitting sales with you and your competitor? Make a list & strip away the fluff. Your customers certainly are, and you should be, too.

- Lance LaRue, Advertising & Creative Manager at Americom Marketing Ad Agency 2010