Three Letters To Put Your Marketing on Easy Mode (And How Rhode Did It)

rhode skincare was acquired last May by Elf Beauty in a $1B Mega deal that stunned the beauty industry

Most marketing is cheesy and forgettable. Unnoticed. Customers tune it out because there’s so much vying for their attention.

That’s about to change for you. We’re going to cover how to craft an offer that grabs your target audience and grabs them (by the eyeballs) to pay attention to your stuff.

What Is A USP and WHY It Matters

USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. Simply put. The reason someone will buy from you instead of anyone else. The more "populated" your niche is, the more important your USP is for a homerun. Most business fail to find product market fit due to poor USP, (primarily).

Get it right and everything gets easier. Get it wrong and you’re in for a really really rough time.

Investing a bit of time to nail your USP is going to pay off big time.

Check out these examples and think about what YOU could take and use in your business:

Fresh, Hot Pizza Delivered In 30 Minutes Or Less, Guaranteed

How does a small pizza chain go from 1 to 19,000+ stores in over 90 countries?

With a USP that’s impossible to ignore.

Domino's USP was simple: "Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed." Every other pizza place used the same slogans. Best recipe, best pizza, special sauce, great pricing, blablabla.

Domino's focused on the three things their clients wanted most:

1. Speed - you'll have your pizza lightning fast, in 30 minutes or less
   

2. Quality - it'll be hot out of the oven and freshly made, never soggy or cold
   

3. Peace of mind - delivered in 30 minutes or you don't pay, guaranteed. No risk.
   

They didn't try to be cute or clever. Just insanely compelling. And it worked amazingly well.

Melts In Your Mouth, Not In Your Hand

Think about M&Ms and you might think of their famous USP: 

"Melts in your mouth, not in your hand."

This simple phrase isn't just catchy - it's a masterclass in crafting a USP around a product's single biggest benefit.

Because what makes them unique is the hard candy shell around the chocolate. By itself that’s meaningless. Nobody cares about features alone. It's the benefit those features provide that really matters to customers.

So M&M's didn't just say "We have a candy shell!" They translated that feature into a clear, compelling benefit: no messy, melted chocolate on your hands. A tangible improvement to the customer's life.

They could've focused on other benefits like the taste or the colors. But they zeroed in on the one that mattered most to their audience and hammered it home in all their messaging.

The lesson? List out every feature of your product or service. Then, get creative and translate each one into a concrete benefit for your customer.

One Of Everything Really Good

Think about what the ultimate confusion for a gen-z girl is. It's not SAT, Breakup relapse, or best cat food. It's "What beauty routine do I follow to look as hot as possible and flex on IG." Hailey did exploit, morally or immorally, this insecurity to the core. She dropped a skincare brand that shaved all the clutter and confusion. Just use this single cream everyday, and you'll glow like donut aka. like me. They did not sell the vitamins the product is made of, the moisturizing vague feature every player regurgitates. They attacked what confusion it wipes out. Shit that moves the needle.

Culminating in her legendary billion-dollar exit.

If you're struggling to find a USP, you should try to work with experts to come up with, test, and iterate the best angle for your audience. If that's you get in touch. Talk soon,