Yes, but do YOU know how to write a YP ad.... 
Whenever someone pulls out national businesses as examples its usually a sign they have no clue what they are talking about.
BTW
I have heard those examples a thousand times, what you jokers seem to overlook is they spend a $Billion dollars a year on advertising. Even if they didn't have some clever USP they would still be successful, Its icing on the cake NOT the cake.
Um yep, written Yellow Pages ads before.
Here's something simple to keep in mind, where you see a phrase that is a platitude, replace it with a USP, and BOOM, you stand out amongst all of your competitors.
I think you're getting confused, you're right these companies spend huge amounts a year on marketing, and more often than not, very ineffective marketing at that, usually in the form of branding campaigns which as a local carpet cleaner, you shouldn't be worried about.
However, using a USP is an aspect related to direct response marketing, as you actually are giving your prospect something to move them closer to the sale. And in all direct response marketing, it's very trackable, meaning you can track the amount of leads generated from a particular ad, figure out your conversion rate on the ad and decide if it's a profitable place for you to do your marketing or not.
Really, you should speak with such passion against platitudes, because they lean more towards the branding side, "Loyal. Ethical. Nobody Cares.", this is the type of marketing you're actually speaking out against when you say, "Well they have billions of dollars in advertising".
A USP is simply discovering your target markets pain point, and then solving their problem.
Let's not look at this as though it's Domino's and instead a small local pizza place. The local pizza place finds that their target markets biggest hurdle in ordering a pizza is the fact pizza delivery often takes an hour and by the time it arrives is often cold and is better served to the garbage then their stomachs (pain point).
So, they craft a USP that alleviates this problem, "Pizza delivered in the 30 minutes --- or it's free!", and not only are they alleviating the problem, but they're stamping it with a guarantee that is EXTREMELY simple to understand.
Okay, how do they market it? Direct mail flyers? Sure. So, they buy 5,000 direct mail flyers, and say you MUST mention this offer to redeem it (there's the tracking), and send them to apartments and houses.
Let's say to create the flyer and send it out they spent $3,000.
The average order comes in at $20/each and the advertisement does well and converts at 2%, and it generates 100 orders or $2,000.00. Unfortunately the initial ad doesn't generate an ROI.
However, in the process of this, they have collected the name and address of each person that redeemed their ad, now they have a very small but strong list to re-market to as they've proven themselves as buyers. The campaign slowly builds out as they continue the initial mailings + build out their buyers list.
Perhaps they use a loyalty card that is only given to customers that were generated via that direct mail, and they realize over a 6 month period, that customer isn't only worth the initial $20, they've actually ordered a pizza every month over a 6 month period, so that customer is now worth $120 to them.
So, let's say 25% of those generated from the initial mailing went on to prove that their value was in the form of $120, that would be 25 people X $120 = $3,000.00 + the other 75 people that only ordered the first time = $1,500.
Now the campaign has went from generating $2,000 initially, to generating $4,500, providing an ROI on the initial investment. Of course I really don't know the costs of making the pizza etc.
From here, they can further market promotions to their buyers list, implement referral programs and on and on.
I know you could pick all those numbers apart, but they're fairly conservative, and I'm trying to illustrate the point that it's not a matter of Domino's having a billion dollars in their marketing budget, it's a matter of crafting a marketing piece that generates enough business that your marketing is ROI positive. Also note, that I don't believe Domino's did anything I mentioned, this is just a way that it COULD have been done, it's a matter of looking at previous successful marketing campaigns that are done, and re-crafting them to suit your business, and adding your own spin to pump the campaign for more money than even one of the big guys thought to do.
In saying all of this, the best USP implementation I've found by split testing myself was for a dentist.
We were targeting women, between 25-40, who were engaged, we were using the very invasive Facebook as our platform, haha. The product we were marketing to them was Invisalign, and hitting the pain point of having crooked teeth in their wedding pictures.
All of the copy remained the same, but, in the top left, before any of the copy started, we ran two different variations.
One had the dentists logo and his little slogan of, "Best Dentist in _______"
The other one I used the formula I mentioned in my first post, "We specialize in helping brides-to-be get their perfect smile in 120 days or less..."
I can only conclude that it acted as a hook, as it was in the top left, before any of the copy started. So, instead of reading the head line first and saying yae or nae, they stayed because here's a dentist that specialized in helping THEM fix THEIR problem.
The conversion rate moved from 0.3% -> 2.4% just with the USP.
Let's say Fred had one of the flashing advertisements on this page, and his said, "We specialize in Websites and SEO for Carpet Cleaners."
And I had an ad on here that said, "We specialize in Websites and SEO."
Now, neither of us would have posted here, so you wouldn't have the rapport or have seen the knowledge that Fred portrays, you're acting purely off the advertisement.
Would you not go with Fred? Would you not even be willing to pay Fred more because he SPECIALIZES in helping YOU specifically?? You would believe, and rightly so I'm sure, that Fred has specific knowledge in helping YOU as a carpet cleaner. Where as I would only be able to apply strategies that I've seen work in other markets.
Anyways, I think we've all said enough on this subject for people reading this to come to their own conclusions.
Please accept that I simply came here to add value to a thread that I thought needed it, I am not aware of the other content on this forum, so whether I repeated what everybody else is saying or not, I don't know.
