What Makes Your ISP Unique?

You know all there is to know about URLs, but to make your ISP successful, you need to master USPs.

by Christopher M Knight [June 8, 1999]

With an ISP on virtually every corner, your subscribers and soon-to-be subscribers need a serious reason WHY they should choose or continue to choose your ISP for internet access. In today's article, we're going to look into how to figure out what makes your ISP unique and why you should have one.

First, terminology: USP = Unique Selling Proposition. This is a one-line statement of what makes your ISP unique. For it to be effective, you must find a way to get it down to ONE simple sentence--because most new prospective subscribers won't give you more than a few seconds to impress them with WHY they should buy from you.

It's also important to point out that you must always give them a reason WHY they should buy and you may find that you can increase your sales closure ratio at no extra cash cost other than giving more reasons why they should buy from you.

Some example USPs

• The Fastest ISP In The State
• Your 100% Up-Time ISP
• The Business ISP
• The Consumer ISP Choice
• The Mac ISP Specialists
• The 'You've Got WebTV' ISP
• The [insert specialty vertical niche market here] ISP
• We Make Getting On The Internet Easy
• 100% Perfect Connections Or Your Internet Access is Free
• The 'No Busies Or It's Free' ISP
• Expert Internet Access Assistance 24 Hours A Day

So, what's the right USP for your ISP?
Start by identifying your strengths. What do you do better than anyone else? What asset, relationship, capital, hardware or network, expertise, or skill do you have that gives your ISP a competitive edge?

There is also the matter of positioning. For example: If you said that your ISP was the fastest in the area, but that didn't matter to your core target customers, you are wasting your breath--and your marketing dollars.

Formula
Here is a simple formula for developing your USP: Your ISPs USP = [what is most important to your customers + the niche which you wish to target + what your greatest strength are or could be]

Exercise
This next piece of advice, I paid $7,000 for, in a week-long seminar a few years back. It's an exercise designed to help you articulate your USP:

Say this:

"Do You Know How [State the major pain associated with what your target market might experience or feel]?"

"What Our ISP Does Is [State how your ISP relieves this pain]".

Example:

"Do you know how most internet access providers in the area always give you busy signals at the worst possible time?"

"At [insert ISP name], we guarantee no busies or its free. We can make that offer because we always buy more servers than our maximum load capacity"

Another example:

"Do you know how most internet access providers can't speak your language when you have a question, and either don't answer their phone, blow you off, or don't return your call?"

"At [insert ISP name], we provide friendly courteous technical support 24 hours a day. We guarantee your calls will be answered or give you a call-back within 60 minutes during normal business hours."

One last example:

"Do you know how most internet access providers say they will give you fast access, but when you get on, you'd swear that you could watch a movie in the time it takes to download a file?"

" At [insert your ISP name], we provide truly high speed service with our Dedicated T1, T3, OC3 connections. We promise never to oversell our capacity, so that you always get high speed Internet access—even during peak times—or it's free."

Hang in there!
Finally, once you've decide what your ISPs unique selling position is, don't change it. Resist the temptation to change it, as you want to be consistent in the marketplace. You want your marketing, your people, your letterhead/envelopes/biz cards and your website all march to the same tune. If you do change this, make sure it's a major change or a total repositioning of your company, in order to make it worth it.

To Your ISP Success!
Christopher M Knight
—Managing Editor of The ISP-Lists

P.S.: I'm interested in feedback. If you've got thoughts on this column or would like to see your topic discussed in a upcoming column, send me your thoughts at chris@isp-lists.com