How to Create a ‘Value Proposition’
Wondering how to create a value proposition?
Learn why all successful businesses have this one crucial feature and how you can identify your own.
How to Create a ‘Value Proposition’
[and why your business NEEDS one]
Marketing is full of buzzwords and jargon that can make your head spin.
Some of those terms can happily be ignored - but others are crucial to the success of your business.
It doesn’t matter if you sell clothes, art or home-made jam, the term ‘Value Proposition’ is one you’ll need to pay close attention to.
But what about your business, does it need a Value Proposition?
And how to create a Value Proposition in the first place?
Read on to discover what a value proposition is and why it matters to your business goals.
What is a Value Proposition?
Why should a customer choose your business?
If you can answer that question, you’ll have your Value Proposition.
A Value Proposition is a simple, succinct and to-the-point statement that explains why a customer should part with their hard-earned cash for any of your products or services, or spend their precious time reading your blog (yep, this applies to bloggers too).
This reason shouldn’t be something surface level like “because my business is great” or “because I’ve been providing top notch services for 10 years and bring tons of experience”.
Instead, a Value Proposition is built around the problems you solve and the positive impact you have on your customer’s lives.
Your Value Proposition is how you stand out from the crowd
Your Value Proposition is an innovation or feature intended to make your business attractive to potential customers.
This is NOT THE SAME as a Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
A USP is what makes your product or services different from the competition, while a Value Proposition is why people should care about that difference.
So, what do you stand for? What are you delivering? What are you communicating to your audience? What are you an authority on?
These types of questions can help you identify what makes your business special.
Here’s how to create a Value Proposition as a small business owner
Value Propositions are vital and something businesses identify frequently. But they’re not always something small business owners think about…
If you’re a business owner who’s been relying on word of mouth, this might explain why some months your inbox is full of leads and sales and other months are quiet with products sitting on the shelf.
Once you figure out your Value Proposition you can build your marketing around that value to create a consistent flow of loads or sales.
Here are a few simple questions you can ask yourself to help to put your Value Proposition together:
What benefits do I offer my customers?
Are these benefits valuable?
Does my product or service appeal to my target audience?
Do I even know who my target audience is?
Am I looking to improve people’s health, wealth or something else?
Why would someone pick me if price was taken out of the equation?
Why am I different from other business owners in my industry?
Now when I say benefits, it doesn’t have to be a product or a discount you offer it could be the benefit of knowledge too.
Let’s look at an example from foodie blog So Yummy
Let’s take an example from So Yummy to see a blogging Value Proposition in action.
So Yummy is a blogging website that provides food videos, recipes, news, articles, lifestyle themes and shopping. They boast a massive following of over 24 million followers on Facebook, 9.7 million on Instagram and 7.4 million subscribers on YouTube.
The benefits they provide are easy to use recipes for their target audience - which is families and kids. The benefits are extremely valuable because they inspire people to create work/life balance in meal preparations while bringing family together to eat healthy meals.
So Yummy has a huge following and provides recipes, but that’s not their Value Proposition.
Their Value Proposition is that their recipes save time, bring families together, and create healthy (yummy) food.
So Yummy also provides useful information to inspire cooking at home and brings professional photography and videography styles in their blogs and videos. They are different to most food bloggers in this way as they bring a massive array of information about food from a variety of different sources, all while delivering recipes for lunch, dinner, dessert on all social media platforms.
Use the ‘Value Proposition Formula’ to help you get started
Coming up with your own Value Proposition can feel overwhelming, I get it.
So here’s a simple framework to avoid going off track.
“I help X accomplish Y through unique Z”.
There’s your basic Value Proposition formula. If you can fill that in you’ll have the foundation to start coming up with your unique value in your customer’s lives.
Let’s say you want to sell photography courses online. Your formula might say…
“I help amateur photographers take award-winning photographs in an online course lasting less than 30 minutes”.
This imaginary business helps people up their photo game to look great on IG or start their own photography business - and they do it quicker than anyone. That’s why you should buy their course from them, and that’s their Value Proposition in a nutshell.
Ready to create a Value Proposition? Make sure it’s….well, VALUABLE
As a business owner you want to improve your site traffic, get more clicks, attract new customers - all those juicy outcomes that make a business worth running.
But to do that, you need to create your Value Proposition.
If you’re struggling to identify what makes your products and services helpful in people’s lives, strip the process back to basics.
Assume every person who lands on your website or who hears about your business is asking “hey, what’s in it for me?”.
If you can answer that question clearly, succinctly, and with obvious value, you’ll have the foundation for an awesome Value Proposition that helps your business grow.