I was driving on I-75 recently. If you have traveled 75, you know it is a main thoroughfare to travel north or south across the United States. You can go as far north as Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan and as far south as Fort Lauderdale, Florida. On one end you can dip your feet in the freezing waters of Lake Superior, on the other you can kick in the warm surf of the Atlantic Ocean. I was near neither of these extremes, but somewhere in the middle - just outside of Lexington, Kentucky heading northbound. I came to the point where I-64 and I-75 merge and then separate. My maps said I could take either highway and arrive at my destination at about the same time. I had a decision to make: should I stay on I-75 and drive north through Cincinnati (a city that seems to be a perpetual construction zone) or take I-64 West to Louisville and take my chances on getting across the Ohio River on one of several bridges that are also currently under construction?

Choices are key drivers to the way we make purchases. We have a multitude of choices in everything we buy. Think about walking into a fast food restaurant for the very first time. When you stare at the menu board at all of the food options while an employee waits to take your order and a line of people forms behind you, do you feel pressure to hurry up and place the order? Why do we feel pressure? It is because we want to weigh all of our options and make the right choice. If we did not care about the choice, we would pay little attention to the menu board and simply say, "Give me a #1” (because every fast food restaurant has a combination called the #1 meal.) Instead, we try to look at all of the choices and weigh our options. Choice drives all of our buying decisions.

So let me ask you a question: why do your customers choose you? Do you know the answer? You should, because it will give a clue to the unique part of your business where you do something well that your competition does not. We often call this your unique selling point and it should be central to all of your marketing efforts.

Too often in marketing, efforts go in many different directions. That is not hard to do because marketing departments typically get stuck with many activities that promote the company. If there is a customer appreciation golf outing, a fundraiser, a trade show, a night to entertain the clients, a web site to be built, social media to maintain, matching T-shirts for the company picnic, a brochure to be designed, a sign to put on the front of the building, a window cling for the corporate vehicles, a press release for the local newspaper, a corporate video, brand management, and so on, it all gets put in the marketing "in-box.” It is easy to feel like you are heading in a million different directions. However, if you can figure out your unique selling point and tie everything you do in marketing to it, you will reinforce the reason people are choosing you. This is the whole point of marketing.

Try this exercise: make a list of the names of your competition. Now write down why you think people purchase from them and not you. They may have a better price or they may have an added feature that you don’t have. It may be a very small difference. It does not matter. Sometimes very small differences sway our decisions. Whatever the reason, list it beside their name. Now write down what you consider to be your unique selling point. Call up three clients and ask them the same questions. See how your list matches or is different from what your customers say. If they match, wonderful – you are in tune with the choices your customers have and why they chose you. However, if their answers don’t match yours, you need to rethink how you are marketing your brands. Either you need to try harder to convince your customers of your way of thinking and change their minds, or you need to change your marketing to match the thoughts of your customers. In the end, they decide to choose you or choose your competition. This can come down to very small differences, but it is what tips the scales one way or the other. You may need to adjust to their way of thinking to increase your sales.

By the way, I chose the route through Cincinnati. Why? It was three minutes closer according to the map app I was using. A mere three minutes made the difference. Along the way, I stopped to buy gas and a few items to eat. Someone gained my business on my travels along I-75 and those along I-64 did not. It all boiled down to that very small piece of information that helped me decide to drive on one highway and not the other. Keep choice in mind when you are marketing. It makes a big difference.