Is your value proposition selling or sinking your business?

Six questions to help you assess if your value proposition and marketing plan need a tune-up.

When you introduce yourself and start talking about your business, do people truly want to hear more?  When your company advertises its products, do you quickly get more sales?  Does telling your story prompt consumers to try your product?  Can your customers easily explain to friends why your product or service is better than your competitors’?  If you answer “no” to any of these questions, it is likely time to revisit your value proposition – or at least how your are communicating it in the market.  It can be hard to grow your business if your target customers do not fully understand your value.

If the concept of a “value proposition” is new to you, I discussed this important tool in my last blog.  I discussed the importance of focusing your value proposition on the benefit you deliver to your customers rather than just talking about your product.  In this blog, we will look at how to make your value proposition a more effective selling tool.

Many companies have a clear value proposition that they use well to define and drive their marketing communication and customer engagement strategies.   Many other companies are less effective.  How is your value proposition working for you?  Are you as effective as you can be in engaging, selling and building loyalty with your target customers?  The following six questions can help you assess if you need to revisit your value proposition and brand communication.

Is it optimized for your target audience?

If it has been a while since you developed your value proposition, is it possible that either the value you deliver or your target audience has shifted?  Start with your definition of your target customer.  Is it clearly defined?  Have you segmented your market? Have you established personas to help you clearly define and communicate your target customer(s) across your organization?  Once you have a clearly defined set of target customers, you can assess whether your current value proposition communicates the most important benefit and decision criteria for that target audience.  If your currently defined value proposition isn’t what compels them to buy from you – and to tell their friends about your product or service – it is time to work on an update.

Does your value proposition engage your customers’ emotions?

Does your value proposition do more to inform or engage your customer?  If your value proposition does not engage an emotional response, it likely can be stronger.  Most product decisions include both rational and emotional components.  The emotional components are not always top of mind for consumers, but they can be powerful drivers.  Few will buy a new car, boat, fishing reel, dress shoe, bottle of bourbon, a meal from a restaurant, or many other items on a purely factual basis.  Even problem-solving purchases such as a drain cleaner, lawn service, spot remover, or toilet plunger can trigger emotions related to doing the best job and/or removing the fear of a poor result.

Doing the right research with your target customers can uncover the conscious and unconscious purchase drivers for their purchase decision.  If your value proposition can connect strong emotional benefits with the strong factual benefits of your product or service, it will be more effective.

Are you translating it to compelling communication?

Some great value propositions get lost on the way to market.  It is important that your finished marketing communication clearly communicates your value proposition – not just create a funny or engaging piece of communication.  In other words, the value proposition should be the core driver of your marketing messages.  If your target customer is not able to restate your value proposition after reading or viewing your communication, you have work to do.  You communication needs to consistently engage customers and reinforce your value proposition to create a growing number of satisfied and loyal customers – and to get these customers to become advocates for your brand.

Ask prospective target customers what is the key message of your communication.  If they do not talk about your value proposition, you are not optimizing your efforts to grow your business.

Are you engaging people in how you tell your story or simply sharing information?

Another way value propositions get lost on the way to market is when they get simplified into just the facts.  Some marketers just list the features of the product expecting that customers will read the list and buy the product. They expect this information alone to allow the product to win in market. 

As fewer brands can afford significant advertising budgets, they rely more heavily on their packaging to sell their product.  Others rely on word of mouth.  For these products and services, developing a simple, easy-to-understand value proposition will do much more than just listing product features on your package.

Tell your story on your package, in social media and other forms of communication.  Tell what makes your product a compelling one to buy – and why customers should buy it from you.  Then make sure your product delivers the value promised, and does so in a way that supports your story.

Are you speaking with one voice in the market?

Too many brands suffer from schizophrenia.  They talk with different messages, tones and character in different channels. If you use different messages or different copywriters across different advertising, PR, social media and other communication channels, your value proposition can become confused or diffused in the market.  To be most effective, you need to have a consistent brand message, look and feel across all channels.  How your message is communicated will vary by channel – so your brand team needs to review each communication channel to ensure that your branding and value proposition is consistently communicated across all consumer touchpoints.

What are your internal roadblocks?

Sometimes, even the most effective companies can get in their own way.  Internal roadblocks or constraints will reduce the effectiveness of a great team.  This can happen through a reorganization that results in a fracturing of a communication team.  It can come from a growing lack of alignment in a senior leadership team over the defined value proposition for the company.  It can come from an agency that believes it knows better than a company’s brand team about what should be communicated.  It can come from a company that does not invest the time to develop strong communication strategies or align its message across media channels.  When a marketing team gets too busy, communication of a clear value proposition can be a casualty.  Don’t let this happen to you.  Keep sight of potential roadblocks and work to remove them before they disrupt your effectiveness.

I am hopeful the above list will be helpful to you.  Remember, having a weakly defined value proposition may not stop you from doing good business in a market, but it will limit you from achieving as much as you could with a strong value proposition.

This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blend website.

GrowthSpring Group is a unique a strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that works with clients to accelerate success by helping them identify and launch new opportunities to profitably grow sales. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com