What's a Value Proposition and Why Do You Need It?

It’s really quite simple.

It's what your business does better than anyone else.

And if you’re able to really perfect your value proposition, your business performance will improve. It may translate in an increase in your conversion rate. And one can argue that learning to present and communicate the value your brand and products deliver in a compelling way is one of the most high-value marketing goals.

It might feel like textbook theory that doesn’t help in the real world. You couldn’t be more wrong. It’s a crucial step to reflect on as it will set the pace for your business. To start, your value proposition statement, which can be a very simple and short sentence, should answer the following 3 questions:

1) Why should the customer buy your offering?
2) What are you selling? This can be your product(s) or service(s).
3) Who is the target customer?

Here’s an example: Make unique and colorful ceramics with pottery classes for beginners.

Can you see how well defined and focused this statement is? It now becomes easy to define your next steps and your communication pillars and goals. You know you’re selling pottery classes (not actual pottery). You know your target is beginners, so we don’t need to focus on the professionals or those seeking to make a career of it. And you separate yourself from other classes because your classes end up with the members doing unique and colorful ceramics along the way. Simple to read, not so simple to come up with!

Here are some tips when reflecting on your business’s value proposition statement.

Try to focus on clarity before creativity. No need for that famous “out of the box” approach, simpler and clearer goes much further with your target audience. Remember this is not an ad creative that you want to stand out, it’s a sentence that should allow someone reading it to immediately understand what makes your brand special. Second, focus on benefits, not the hype. How many “World’s Best Sandwich” signs would you see walking down just one busy street? A lot. Each sign you encounter would make it a little more difficult to believe the previous one. This is what we mean with hype. It can come in the form of superlatives (“best”) and exaggerations (“world’s best”). Simply focus on distinct benefits and the concrete value your product delivers.

If you struggle with the above tips, then this could be an indicator that your value proposition is not well defined, even in your mind. Or worse, your product is not as valuable as you think.

Ask yourself: What do I do better than anyone else?

It doesn’t have to be that your product is the first of its kind in the world. Maybe it’s your customer service, maybe it’s material quality, maybe it’s price… It can be anything customers find valuable.

Just take the time to reflect or get in touch so we can delve into the exercise together.