What is a Value Proposition?
What is a Value Proposition?
Many businesses function without clearly defining their value proposition. Some reasons for this are not understanding its importance or thinking it is too hard. One of the most common reasons for not prioritising a value proposition is if a business just wants to get their products promoted to generate quick sales, without realising that relationship-building activities such as the value prop are the key to sustained, high-performance customer engagement and sales. Transactional marketing vs great marketing!
It’s also not uncommon for brands to only promote the features of their products or services rather than the value and benefits they provide. What’s wrong with that? Well, people buy solutions, not features. They want to know ‘what’s in it for them’ and what value they’ll receive. So how do you define the needs of your customers and the problems that your products or services solve? With a value proposition, of course.
The good news is that it’s not nearly as hard as you think. Let’s break down why you need a value proposition and just how simple it can be.
What is a value proposition?
A value proposition outlines how your customer or client will benefit from your product or service; the value they’ll receive. Getting clear on this is great for marketing, but it’s also essential for aligning focus across your business and in future business development.
Why? Marketing is just one part of how you communicate with your customers. The customer has touchpoints across their journey with various departments such as customer service and finance. Having a clear, value-driven message relayed from each of these departments is critical for a consistent customer experience and building a more meaningful relationship.
Why do you need a value proposition?
So now we know that having a value proposition gets the entire team clear on your business focus and the problem that you solve. That equips employees with the knowledge of your mission, allowing them to say the right things to the right people and intuitively send your message to customers.
But it’s not all about the buying experience. A well-developed value proposition has huge benefits to the growth and development of your business, as well. Once you’ve defined the key challenges, desires and goals of your customer, you can continually expand your service or product suite to offer better, more extensive solutions. When everything your business works on is consistently in line with what your customer needs, they start to feel like your brand really ‘gets them’, and the relationship has the potential to evolve to a point where you’re able to help inform their buying decisions and perception of ‘needs’.
A value proposition is an impressive and holistic building block for your business. What’s more, developing your own value proposition can be quite simple, so it’s not something that needs to take the backburner. Even if you’re already in operation and have been shying away from the value prop until now, you could begin seeing the benefits by answering three simple questions.
Three Simple Questions to Develop Your Value Prop
So, how do you write a value proposition? It’s easy. Your value prop statement needs to hold the answers to the following three questions.
- What does your customer need/what do they care about?
- How do you help with this?
- What makes you different from other businesses that solve the same problems?
I’ve put together three simple steps to writing a value proposition statement that any business owner can do on their own. I’ve added examples about Kinetic Effect’s marketing consulting services below each point, to help you get a feel for how to answer.
- Define your ideal customer and the main solution they are seeking
- Kinetic Effect helps business owners and leaders of SMBs. They’re seeking ways to increase revenue and get more customers, but they need help to know which marketing channels to use.
- Identify how your products or services help and provide value
- I deep-dive into my clients’ offerings to determine the best messaging, for the most appropriate channels, in order to gain the most customer engagement for their business.
- Explain why you’re the best choice over others
- I have cross-industry experience spanning more than 15 years, and being a virtual CMO on-demand, I’m a cost-effective alternative to an in-house marketing team for businesses without large budgets. By integrating coaching into my approach, I’m able to upskill current employees, further reducing the need for external support.
Now, you can use these answers to craft a succinct paragraph. For example:
“[Problem] You’ve got a great product but not-so-great revenue. You just know it would sell if you could simply get it in front of the right people. [Solution] Save the energy, time, and budget you’ve been spending on trying to reach all of the people through all of the channels, and hire a marketing executive to do the research, refinement, and hard work for you. [Why you?] Kinetic Effect offers virtual CMO services at a fraction of the cost of an in-house marketer, on-demand, when and where you need it the most. Access 15 years’ of cross-industry marketing experience at the click of a button.”
See, what did I tell you? Simple! You can draft up endless versions of these three answers, and when you find one that sits well with your mission and brand, you’ll have cemented a values-based message and a clear purpose to guide your teams’ communications with customers moving forward.
If you need support identifying your three key answers, why not pick my brain during a free 60 minute discovery call. Click here to book yours.
