Digging Deep With Your Value Proposition

The value proposition of your business is so important. It is the link between you and your customers. No matter how great your service, how innovative your product, if you can’t articulate and back up a rock solid value proposition, it is almost impossible to get noticed in this climate of over-saturated messaging.

Developing a meaningful value proposition takes time. The starting point of your thinking and research must always be from your customer’s point of view. We’re talking about the value your product or service brings to their life, not the value of your time, effort, qualifications. These latter things are important to you as a business owner in setting up systems, establishing price points, choosing your market. They don’t mean much to your customers – who simply want to know how your product will solve a problem or make their life better.

Here are the key questions your value proposition must answer:

• What does your customer want (what problem solved, or benefit delivered)?
• What are their main fears or doubts around that being fulfilled?
• What does your company offer that nobody else offers?
• How can you prove this (with stories, examples, facts, guarantees)?
• How is this going to be of tangible and quantifiable benefit to your customer?

Be as specific as you can with each of these questions. Statements such as: ‘great customer service’ or ‘best quality products’ don’t hit home. Unless you have substantial proof that you ARE the best at what you do customers will very quickly see through these words and they become meaningless.

For example, Google claims to be the best search engine. Do they have proof? Yes. Google logs around 2 billion searches per day, Yahoo about 280 million and Bing around 80 million.

The proof for your business will be found the same way – in the actions and feedback of your customers. What do your most satisfied and loyal customers love about you? This will be at the heart of your value proposition.

When value propositions become slogans

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your value proposition can be whipped as a glib ‘one-liner’. The very best brand value propositions can work as slogans but only because a lot of work has gone into researching, testing and proving the premise that sits behind them.

These well known slogans double as value propositions and promise a very tangible solution or benefit to both existing and potential customers:

Dominoes Pizza: Delivered hot and fresh within 30 minutes or it’s free
Avis: We’re number two. We try harder.
Fedex: When your package absolutely, positively has to be there overnight
Australian Financial Review: The daily habit of successful people
DeBeers: Diamonds are forever

And keep in mind that the most successful value propositions have little do with price. Staking your brand value on being the ‘cheapest’ can work for a brand such as Supercheap Auto, but generally a proposition based purely on price will see you quickly sink to the bottom of the value heap.

iQuantum can help clarify your value proposition and ensure it is consistent with, and embedded in all of your online marketing and messaging.