Blog Business Plan: Your Unique Selling Proposition

This is the third post in my “Blog Business Plan” series. Here are the first two:

• Blog Business Plan – 35 Creative Ways to Market Your Blog
• Blog Business Plan – Monetization

This post is about creating a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for your blog.  I realize that not all of my readers have blogs, but the information contained in this post can be easily translated to any business scenario.

As the name implies, your USP is who you are and what makes your blog unique and different from every other blog out there.  For example, Naomi Dunford’s IttyBiz blog is about marketing.  There are a lot of marketing blogs out there, but Naomi has managed to attract a loyal following in a short amount of time.  How? She differentiated by focusing on selling marketing services to very small businesses (and by doing a lot of cursing on her blog, but we’ll skip over that part).

We’re going to look at creating a unique selling proposition from six different perspectives.  I’ll talk about three of these in this blog post and about the other three in an upcoming blog post.  Here are the six perspectives I’ll be covering:

Part One

• Assembling a tribe;
• Recruiting a small army;
• Your 1,000 true fans;

Part Two

• Your blog’s mantra;
• Your elevator speech;
• Your blog’s kinetic quality.

The three perspectives explained below are not the usual way of thinking of your USP, but they’ll get you to think about who your target market is, and what unique benefits you can offer them, from a more right-brained perspective.  From there it will be a lot easier to do the usual left-brained analysis and draft your USP.

Assembling a Tribe

In his bestselling book “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us”, marketing guru Seth Godin argues that human beings need to belong; they need to be part of a tribe. Tribes make our life better.  A tribe can be model car enthusiasts, volunteers at the ACLU, or the employees of a particular corporation. Har­ley David­son and Apple have tribes.

Successful bloggers find a group of people with similar interests, they bring them together, and they get them excited about a new idea or message, a product, or a service.  Gary Vaynerchuk runs the video blog Wine Library TV. He has a tribe: millions of people around the world turn to him to narrate their passion for wine. He helps them discover new wines and better understand the wines they love.

Tribes count on generous, authentic leaders to inspire and motivate them. The tribe needs the leader’s vision and passion. They’re waiting to be energized and transformed. Seth adds that anyone can be a leader; in order to lead you just need to get over your fear of being wrong and of being criticized.

Seth also argues that the way in which the world is set up now, you don’t need to have power or lots of money and other resources to lead; you just need to find and connect like-minded people and lead them to a place they want to go.

Increasing the Effectiveness of the Tribe

A leader can help increase the effectiveness of the tribe by doing the following three things:

1. Transforming the tribe’s shared interest into a passionate goal or desire for change.  Jonathan Mead has created a blog for people who want to drop out of the 9 to 5, live life on their own tems, and do work they love.  In the blog posts he publishes on “Illuminated Mind”, he encourages his tribe to take the necessary steps in order to discover their true passion and be true to their authentic selves.

2. Providing tools to allow members to tighten their communications. Darren Rowse over at Problogger recently started a forum so that members of his tribe can work together in improving their blogs.

3. Leveraging the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members. Gretchen Rubin from “The Happiness Project” recently leveraged her tribe by asking her readers for help.  Here’s what she asked them to do:

“If you’re so inclined, it would be a huge help if you’d forward the link to this blog to three people who might be interested. Do you know someone facing a happiness challenge? Someone very interested in the subject of happiness? Word of mouth is the best recommendation; people really respect their friends’ suggestions.”

How to Tighten the Tribe

Although many leaders focus on the third option above–leveraging the tribe to get more followers–it’s important to keep in mind that a motivated, committed tribe in the midst of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group that’s loosely held together.  Therefore, it’s important not to lose focus of the need to tighten your tribe.

Here are some ideas on how to tighten the relationship with the people who choose to follow your blog:

• Remember that, in most cases, trying to lead everyone results in leading no one in particular. Great leaders don’t try to please everyone. They don’t water down their message in order to make the tribe a little bit bigger.
• Share “war stories”.
• Set up goals for your tribe.
• Create a manifesto.
• Be authentic.
• Create exclusivity.
• Survey the tribe members; ask for feedback.
• Create a tribal school.
• Have a tribal mission.

What kind of people are in your tribe?  What’s your message for them?  Where are you leading them to?  Who does your leadership resonate with?  What products or services can you offer that would help your tribe members reach their shared destination?

How to Recruit a Small Army

In his blog post, “How to Recruit a Small Army”, Chris Guillebeau explains that if you want to change the world in a positive way, you’re going to a need a small army to do it.  He indicates that you have to inspire your army to keep their loyalty, and give them specific field assignments.

Chris explains that you can recruit your army by doing something great: Sam Thompson ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, thus acquiring a following of fellow running fanatics.

Also, Chris adds that another way to recruit your army is to announce your plans (advertise); by hanging up your shingle and putting your message out there you will attract the people who are interested in your message.  In “Tribes” Seth Godin argues that Al Gore didn’t know who his tribe was when he started his environmental movement. He stated his message and the people who resonated with his message found him.

One Thousand True Fans

Kevin Kelly argues in his post 1,000 True Fans that anyone producing works of art just needs one thousand true fans to make a living.  Here’s the gist of his theory:

“A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. . . They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.”

If you assume that each of your true fans would spend $100 a year on your products/services, and you have one thousand true fans, that’s $100,000.00 a year. No, you can’t buy a boat, but it’s a pretty decent start. In addition, true fans tell their friends about you, and they help your follower base grow.

Ask yourself: What can you offer that would make 1,000 people rave about you? What can you do that would affect or move one thousand people deeply, that one thousand people would find truly meaningful?

Conclusion

When you see the phrase “Unique Selling Proposition” you probably think of slogans like the following:

• “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free.” — Domino’s Pizza

• “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight.” — Fedex

• “I’m worth it.”  — L’Oreal Preference hair color

• On a plumber’s truck: “We repair what your husband fixed.” (OK; this one’s a joke. ).

However, a great way to hone in on the benefits that you’re providing and on what sets you apart from every other blog clamoring for attention is to think in terms of leading your tribe, inspiring your army, and nurturing your true fans. In my next post I’ll be discussing your USP in terms of your mantra, your blog’s kinetic quality, and your elevator speech.

Here are three articles that can help you in developing your USP:

• Unique Selling Proposition (The Economist)
• USP Analysis (Mindtools)
• 7 Tips for Developing Your USP

Photo from here.

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