If someone asks you why someone should buy your product or pay for your service, you’ve probably got a long list of reasons already building up in your mind.
But, does the front page of your website answer that question in a way that makes potential customers hooked and eager to learn more? That’s where a unique value proposition comes in. If you can’t put all of the reasons why customers should go to your business for their needs into a short piece of copy and imagery, then you won’t achieve the marketing success that you may hope to. Let’s go through how to create a great unique value proposition for your business.
Creating Your Business’s Unique Value Proposition in 2019 Share on X
What is (and isn’t) a Unique Value Proposition?
A unique value proposition is your promise to customers what value you’ll be bringing to them, and how it’s different from other companies that offer similar products. Your unique value proposition needs to accomplish a few vital things.
First, it needs to spell out what your business does to help customers solve a problem or make their lives easier. It also needs to articulate what they can expect in the way of features and benefits from your products or services. Your proposition needs to explain why your company stands out from the rest and, by extension, why customers should go to you instead. Finally, your proposition needs to be the first thing people see when they visit your site so they immediately know what your business is bringing to the table.
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But, it’s important to note what a unique value proposition shouldn’t be:
- A slogan or catchphrase
- A mission statement paragraph
- A long-winded “About Us” page
While these are good to have on your company website, they cannot replace your unique value proposition. A slogan is too short and doesn’t give customers enough information. A mission statement is usually too long to be a value proposition, and doesn’t get the right information across. Your “About Us” page is probably too long to be a value proposition too, meaning it won’t be easy to understand in the matter of a few seconds.
Let’s go through the exact elements that build a value proposition, and how you can create yours.
Elements of a Value Proposition
Headline
This is the part of your value proposition that most people will turn to first. Your headline needs to be attention grabbing, acting like the hook of your proposal to customers to get them interested immediately. In one short sentence, you need to tell customers exactly what you’re offering them. Here, you can either mention the customer and what they’ll experience with your product, or the most notable factors that make your product unique and useful.
Sub-Headline
Your sub-headline comes directly after your headline to expand upon what you’ve introduced to customers as your business and/or product. The length of this section can vary, but ideally you’ll want to limit it to 3 sentences in the form of a short paragraph. This is your opportunity to give a specific explanation of what your business does, what your product can do for customers, who it’s good for, and why it’s better than everything else out there.
Key Points
Usually in the form of a bulleted list, this is where you’ll line out the exact features of your product or service, or the benefits that customers can expect. This section is optional, but gives you another chance to line out the most stand-out parts of what you’re offering.
Visual
While text is great for talking to your customers directly, a picture still says a thousand words. Your visual element can be a picture of your product, an embedded video of customers using your product, or anything that helps you get the message across to customers that’s aesthetically pleasing and informative at the same time.
How to Create a Unique Value Proposition
Now that you have a better understanding of what makes up a value proposition, you should answer a few questions to help you actually put it together.
Who is your target audience?
Before you can start formulating the actual content of your value proposition, you need to establish who you’re talking to. No, “everyone” is not an answer; if you try to sell to everyone, you won’t connect with anyone in a meaningful way. Focus on who wants your products, who would patronize your business, and how you can communicate with them. This is a good time to establish your buyer persona, if you haven’t already. Pin down demographics like gender, age, income, hobbies and interests so you can use that information to understand what they might want to hear from your business.
What is your purpose and/or mission?
Take a look at your business’s mission statement and put thought into what your business stands for at its core. Then, think about what your business is offering to customers, and what sets you apart from everyone else in the industry. Pinpoint where your mission statement and unique business features line up, and use those to start formulating what you need to say as your value proposition. If your business takes a different path than most others in your industry, be sure to take note of that and use that to your advantage.
What problem are you solving?
Now, time for the more practical aspect of your value proposition; what does your product do that others can’t? Try to line out exactly what problems and pain points that customers will come to you to alleviate. Is your product saving them time, money or both? Create a list of everything that your product does, and focus on the things that your competitors do not. This is going to be the meat of your value proposition.
What makes you stand out?
Just like you’ve put together what your audience, mission and solutions are, you need to do the exact same thing for your competitors. Who are your competitors and what are they doing well or not well? In regards to what they’re not doing well, how does your business improve upon that? But, in what they are doing well, how does your business do it better? If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to know who the crowd is; customers need to know why they should buy from you and not anyone else. Hone in on what makes your business unique and run with it.
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Tips for a Good Value Proposition
- Make sure it’s clear and easy to understand. Your value proposition should communicate real results and benefits while being short and sweet; it should take 5 seconds or less to read and grasp. Campaign Monitor’s headline is just 3 words, but it immediately tells you what they do.
- Target and connect with specific buyer personas. The value proposition on your website is your chance to immediately connect with the exact customer you’re targeting. If you have several main products that each have different audiences, you can target different buyer personas with specific needs or wants; PayPal does a great job at this with their Personal and Business accounts.
- Speak your customer’s language. It’s vital that you know who your target audience is because your value proposition needs to be written in a way that they can understand and relate to. Avoid jargon, hyperbole and superlatives that serve no purpose but to baselessly hype your business up. Dollar Shave Club does a great job connecting with their customers in their value proposition.
Conclusion
When you create a website for your eCommerce business, you need to think of your front page as your elevator pitch on overdrive. An effective and unique value proposition not only helps explain why you should be set apart from your competitors, but it’s very existence may set you apart from companies that might not even have a clear value proposition on their website. Regardless of the value proposition you craft, one thing’s true: you need to test it extensively to find out what parts of it work, what parts don’t, and how you can optimize it to become the best and most effective it can be.
General FAQs
Unique Value Proposition is a clear statement that describes the benefit of your offer, how you solve your customer’s needs and what distinguishes you from the competition.
A company’s value proposition refers to the value a company promises to deliver to customers should they choose to buy their product.
Your good value proposition should describe; how your product or service solves/improves problems, what benefits customers can expect, and why customers should buy from you over your competitors.
