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

Your Value Proposition: Stop talking about you. What’s in it for me?

How well is your value proposition working for you?

The elevator ride challenge

I have been listening to a lot of business pitches recently.  Between working with clients, a startup accelerator and recent networking meetings, I have heard a lot of people introduce themselves and their business. And…it is boring.

Too often we communicate our businesses in terms of our functional capabilities or industry verticals.  We do not introduce our businesses in a way that is engaging, compelling and meaningful to our current and prospective customers.  I talked with a gentleman this past week and asked him to tell me about his business.  He introduced his business as “we do IT”.  It took two minutes of asking pointed questions for me to uncover their unique point of difference in the IT world. He had not been taught how to sell his business in a way that clearly defines the value they offer.

I have been listening to a lot of entrepreneurial business pitches this year.  One of the biggest challenges for an entrepreneur is to simplify his/her business pitch to a single sentence or at least a compelling 30-second elevator pitch.  After three to five minutes, many entrepreneurs still struggle to explain their business concept clearly.  If the value proposition is not clear, the opportunity for to secure investment in a new business is highly diminished.

I recently took one person for a ride in an actual elevator to pitch her concept, and she did fairly well to simply tell what they do while traveling just four floors. Could you do this?  Can you describe your business in an engaging and compelling way to explain the key benefit to your customers in a 20 to 30 second elevator ride?  Can all the members of your leadership team do this?

Identifying your value proposition

Many companies do a nice job of defining a clear value proposition and compelling reasons to believe it.  Having clear reasons to believe (or RTBs) is also important.  The combination of the value proposition and RTBs help a target customer decide if you provide interesting value to them – the What’s In It For Me factor or (WIIFM).

It does take work to identify and clearly define your value proposition.  Many companies struggle with this. It takes practice and training to do this well.  Here are a couple thoughts to assist you in thinking through how to better define your value proposition.  You and your team may be great at this, but it is surprising how many companies still need work in this area.

Let’s start with what you are not.  If you can identify the products and services you do not provide, you will avoid the temptation of defining your scope and value proposition too broadly.  You may be in IT, but you do not work on hardware.  By defining yourself as not a hardware company, it makes it quicker to define your strengths in the realm of software and/or application development.

What is the one product or service benefit you provide that your customers value from you over your competitors? Articulate what you uniquely offer. Do you make fishing lures or fishing lures that are highly effective because of they way they light up underwater?  Do you run an Italian restaurant or do you run the Italian restaurant with unique family recipes from Northern Italy where all the servers make you feel like family?  Do you sell coffee or do you sell coffee from organic coffee growers whom you work with to help develop sustainable practices in their community and farms?  Do you create websites or do you create websites that effectively engage and sell target customers through an ecommerce platform that is highly customizable?

Make sure your value proposition is relevant and meaningful to your target customers.  Is your value proposition both valuable and differentiated from your competition?  How many restaurants do you know that sell chicken sandwiches?  How many of them have a clearly differentiated chicken sandwich?  What makes it different? 

If you are willing to drive farther to buy something, there is a clearly differentiated value proposition that has engaged you.

Does your communication clearly communicate your value proposition such that a customer would drive further or pay more to get your product or service vs. your competition?  If your answer is no, you have work to do.

If you can afford research, conduct research with your current and target customers to help you understand what they value.  This will help you define and communicate a compelling value proposition.

Why should we believe you?

Once you have a value proposition, you need to support it.  What are your RTBs?

I was recently in the Florida Keys.  Almost every restaurant we saw has an “award winning” key lime pie.  That’s a lot of awards.  Many companies claim to be the best at what they do.  What the winning companies do is define how they uniquely provide a specialized product and service.  They provide clear reasons to believe why they are a better choice for this solution than others.  The restaurant that displays the awards and offers a money-back guarantee if you do not love their pie will stand above those who just claim to be award winning.

Is your company environmentally friendly because you say so (and then buy carbon offsets in exchange for how you conduct day-to-day business)? Or, do you work in a LEED certified building with a net zero use of energy and recycle over 90% of all waste? Which of these two sound more environmentally friendly to you?

Providing clear, powerful and relevant reasons to believe will support your value proposition and make your story authentic and differentiating. 

Write your story

You need to write your own story.  Combine your value proposition and reasons to believe into a 20-30 second story.  Create your own authentic differentiating story as to why customers should do business with you – not why you are great, but why you offer a unique, valuable benefit to them.  Then explain why they should believe that benefit.

When you have this right, it should become the foundation for your communication brief for your brand communication.  Your leadership team should all be able to tell your story.  And, your sales team should also be trained in how to sell with this story. 

This short story about your value proposition is the core of what will differentiate you in the market.  It should not change year to year.  If you consider changing your go-to-market strategy in a way that will change your value proposition, do your homework first.  Make sure your proposed change offers a potential reward that is worth risking and/or disrupting your customer loyalty and business.

For now, make sure your current story is the strongest story you can tell to differentiate and build your business.  Don’t be boring!

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 

How to build lasting brand relationships in a digital-connection culture

Digital communication continues to change relationships – with people and brands.  

How people engage with communication differs for Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers.  Do you use your phone to tweet, Snapchat, text, post, email, or call?  Communication is now less face-to-face; it is more device-to-device. If person-to-person communication has become this diverse, how is your brand communicating?  How is it engaging people?  How are you developing lasting brand relationships?

The world is moving to a digital-connection culture.  People connect with more online friends, followers, colleagues and contacts than they connect with people they know in person.  We know far more about the likes and beliefs of online friends than we do with the people we work with each day.  Friends of friends may want to add you as their friend, or they may follow you, but they may never meet you in person.  More and more, we are moving from live, personal relationships to a digital-connection culture. 

In a world where the number of digital relationships increases faster than live ones, brand referrals are changing. Seeing that a friend “likes” a brand is less likely to influence you than spending time together talking about a brand.  Multiple research studies show that people trust friends and family for brand referrals much more than brand advertising.  How consumers learn about brands from digital friends will continue to evolve.  As communication evolves, brands will need to identify new ways to connect, gain trust and build relationships.  Brand teams must find new ways to engage consumers directly.

Beyond digital advertising and story telling

The advertising world continues to evolve.  The world of digital has continued to fragment advertising options.  You can buy digital ads any number of ways, but often the click through and conversion rates can be very low.  If you are a big company, with big budgets, you can afford to analyze “big data” to find the big trends and targeting data.  For organizations that are not as “big”, a different approach is needed. 

This is one reason many organizations are moving from an advertising strategy to a story telling or content strategy.  People do not want to be “talked at” by brands.  They value brands that understand them.  They value brands that:

• Are authentic
• Listen to me
• Understand me
• Make my life better
• Share information that is helpful to me
• Develop a valued relationship with me

Brands developing a content or story telling strategy are off to a great start.  But how we develop that content or stories can make a difference.  Telling stories is not enough.  Telling stories alone is one-way communication. We need to communicate our stories and content in an interactive way that builds brand relationships. 

Developing lasting interpersonal relationships takes both listening and sharing of stories and experiences.  If we want to develop relationships with consumers, it is helpful to

• Understand what your consumers want and need
• Ask for and listen to their feedback
• Share stories of how your brand has delighted others like them
• Share stories on how the brand could help them
• Ensure your content is relevant and helpful so consumers will take time to engage

How can your brand develop relationships in this connection culture?

Let me suggest a different way to think about communicating with your target consumer.  We know that to be an effective marketer, you have to know who your target consumer is and what do they want/need from you.  If you want to be effective in developing relationships in the digital world, you will need to connect in a way that will develop experience and trust with your target consumers.  Consumers are using Match.com and other services to find an ideal mate.  Help them find their brand match by sharing with them the right things about your brand.

If you want to start a relationship with someone you meet, there are steps to do that.  I believe these same steps can be applied to build a dating relationship between your brand and your target consumers.  So…if you were to approach new consumers as you would a dating relationship, what might that look like?

Be prepared to answer these questions

Here are some of the questions that your target consumer will go through in any new brand relationship – either consciously or not.  If you prepare to provide relevant content and stories for the early interactions (or “dates”) in your relationship, you will be more successful in creating brand connections and relationships.  The following questions are familiar in any new relationship.  How and where does your brand provide the answers to these questions today?

• Who are you? Who is your brand, what does it stand for, what does it offer, why is it unique?
• Do you understand me? Does your communication to current and target consumers show that you understand who they are, what they want and need and what is important to them?
• Why are you the right one for me? In a world of many choices, why should your brand come into their life? What do you have to offer that others do not? Do you satisfy their wants and needs? Is your brand worth the time and money a consumer invests in you?
• Why should I trust you? Give them reasons to believe and trust you.  Is your communication and content believable?  Do you consistently deliver what you promise?
• Do I want to be seen with you? Do they feel good when others see them use your brand or are they embarrassed?
• Does being with you truly make my life better? After time together, does your brand truly make an ongoing or lasting difference in your consumer’s life?  Do you at least make their a little better?  Can you become a brand they do not want to live without?
• Am I ready to have a long-term relationship with you?  Do you provide a solution that fits well into your consumers’ lives?  Can they stop searching for a solution and bring you into their life for years.  Answering the questions above will help answer this question.

This approach may seem silly, but if you can get consumers to engage in your brand and believe that you deliver well against all of these questions, it is likely that you will develop loyal customers.

Enhance current customer relationships and create new ones

Start with making sure you have the right target consumer.  Just as some people are a better fit for a relationship with another.  Your brand will be the right fit for the right target.  No brand is the perfect fit for everyone.  Know who you fit with and why.  Strengthen your relationship with customers who fit and reach out to new consumers who fit your “ideal consumer” profile. 

Create and distribute your communication and content in places that your target consumer is likely to frequent.  You don’t hang out in a bar if the type of person you want to date does not go to bars. Don’t spend a lot of time and money to advertise or distribute content in places where your target is not.

Ensure your communication and online content strategy is relevant by addressing the relationship questions above.  You will start to attract and engage new consumers.  Over time you will build lasting relationships with your current customers, target consumers and perhaps event their followers, friends and fans.

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

GrowthSpring Group is a unique strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that helps clients accelerate sales and profit growth. We help you identify and implement new business insights, opportunities, winning strategies and plans.  www.GrowthSpringGroup.com

Accelerate Lead Collection To Boost Your Sales

Does your business need more prospects and customers?  All of us would welcome having our sales funnel filled with solid prospects.  If your business depends on identifying sales leads on a regular basis, a couple simple actions on your website and the use of a landing page can greatly accelerate and focus your process of lead collection.

Get An Early Start

If you have a strong sales conversion rate once you start a conversation with a prospect, your goal is to identify more of the right people to engage in sales discussions.  The earlier you can identify a prospect, the earlier you can close a sale. 

For businesses with a lower sales close rate, focusing prospects on your key value proposition early in their research / shopping process can help you engage and close more customers who value what you offer.

Accelerate Your Speed To Leads On Your Website

For many organizations, marketing campaigns drive prospects to the company website.  While this is an effective way to quickly provide access to all of your company information, prospects may visit your website several times before they reach out to contact you to start a conversation – and become a sales lead.  I recommend sending prospects first to a landing page – more on that thought below.

Whether you send prospects directly to your webpage or they land there after starting on your landing page, keep relationship building a top priority on your website.

The easier it is for a prospect to find what they need and to give you their contact information while on your website, the earlier you can start a conversation to gain their business.  Here are some key steps you can take on your website to accelerate this process:

• Incorporate the image and message from your marketing campaign on your homepage.  Let them know they have gone to the right place – and align your benefit communication across all consumer touchpoints.  This reduces your bounce rate and engages web visitors in your content.
• Place an easy to find “Request More Information” link on the upper navigation on your website.  This should be in addition to contact information.  You will get more leads by providing links for both “Request Information” and “Contact Us”.
• Keep your web navigation simple and feature the most commonly sought out information as choices in your navigation bar.
• Include a video that explains your core value proposition that ends with a call to action to request more information or to contact you directly.

Identify Leads Even Sooner With A Landing Page

Through the use of a marketing landing page, you can engage prospects earlier in your marketing campaign – and boost the conversion rate of prospects to leads and then to customers.  According to Omniture, online advertising campaigns that use landing pages typically see a conversion rate improvement of at least 25%. 

You speed up your lead capture as your marketing sends prospects directly to your landing page where you collect their contact information right away.  This can shorten the time from advertising through information collection from weeks or months to a single day. 

Prospects see your ad, click through to your landing page, provide their information in exchange for more information and then can click through to your website.  You are now collecting lead contact data at the start of their search process rather than once they have visited your site several times.  Because landing pages have become a more common tool, consumers are used to giving away some basic contact information in exchange for something from you.

Optimize Your Landing Page To Boost Sales

Here are a few proven best practices you can use on a landing page to boost your impact and effectiveness.  These include:

• Engaging visual and simple benefit communication that ties to marketing campaign – connect the dots to minimize friction.  The goal of the landing page is drive the action of starting a conversation. Optimize your landing page to remove anything that causes prospects to leave before giving you their contact information.
• Offer of value for value – collect contact information in exchange for:  brochure, white paper, free trial, discount, etc.
• Use a simple, short form to capture key contact information.  Collect only the information you need to start the conversation.  Start with name, email, a question/comment box and perhaps a city and state if needed.  Including too many information capture fields will cause prospects to avoid filling out your form. You can collect additional information in your future touch points with new leads.
• Offer a simple thank you page that delivers the promised value once you collect their contact information.  Also include a link to your website on the thank you page.
• Make your landing page mobile friendly.  This is a must today.  According to Media Behavior Institute’s 2013  “USA Touchpoints” study, over 40% of US adults (age 18- 64) use a mobile phone to access the Internet weekly.  Expect that to grow to over 50% in 2014.  For most businesses, this includes your prospects.  If you build your landing page using responsive technology, your prospects can and will likely engage with you across all mobile formats.
• If you are using Google AdWords in your campaign, make sure you use your search keywords in your landing page copy and headlines.  The more closely you are aligned, the more likely you are to win your ad bids and deliver valuable prospects to your landing page. 
• Use A/B testing to optimize your efforts.  Test variations of your landing page to optimize your results.  Ongoing testing of different single variables such as your headline, image, benefit description, information capture form and call to action can help you identify the optimal combination of landing page elements to boost your conversation rate.
• Also use your landing page to optimize your digital marketing.  By placing ad pixels on your landing page, you can track your not only your traffic by marketing source, but also your conversion by marketing source.
• Optimizing your landing page can take some time, but your actions will yield solid results in boosting your conversion of prospects to leads.  Then your sales team just needs to close the sale! 

As you plan your 2014 marketing and sales efforts, consider adding a landing page to your marketing mix if you do not already have one.  If you have a landing page in place, take steps to test and optimize your efforts and effectiveness.  Also take time to review your website home page and navigation.  Make it easy for visitors to find what they need and to request more information.  These simple changes will help you get off to a more productive start in the New Year.

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

GrowthSpring Group is a unique strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that helps clients accelerate sales and profit growth. We help you identify and implement new business insights, opportunities, winning strategies and plans. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com