Whether your brand is a startup or is further along in the development process, a value proposition is one of the most important parts of your brand’s messaging. A good Value Proposition defines your offering and separates your brand from the competition. Mastering the art of crafting your specific value proposition will intrigue your consumers into taking further action and help your brand grow.
What is a value proposition and why does it matter?
A value proposition is part of a company’s overarching branding and marketing strategy. It is a statement that communicates to consumers exactly who the brand is, what they do, and how the consumer can benefit. This statement explains how they can better solve customers’ problems and add value to their lives.
This matters because much like consumers, you want to be heard, to be known, and understood as a brand. This is what catches your consumer’s attention with just a glance, building an audience each and every day. Crafting a Target Value Proposition for your brand is a great way to maximize interest while defining your niche within a market.
Three Simple Steps for Crafting a Value Proposition and Areas of Focus
- Identify consumer’s wants and needs and link them to what your product or service offers to solve this problem.
- Elaborate in detail on the benefits of your offering and how your brand can fulfill a customer’s needs in it’s own unique way.
- Differentiate yourself. There may be many other alternatives to your brand. Highlight how your brand is different from your competitors.
Clarity
Your value proposition should be clear and straightforward. You want consumers to understand what your brand is and how they will benefit from it. Consumers should understand what your brand has to offer as clear as you do. A great tip here is to try and avoid using industry-based jargon and terminology where and when you can because this can sometimes muddy your audience’s understanding. Simple, less complex wording can bring a greater degree and broader scope of understanding to your value proposition.
Understanding your consumers
You will need to do a bit of market research here in order to fully understand your consumers’ tendencies and pain points so that you can appeal to them on a greater scale. Do your research, see what’s trending within your industry, read reviews of competitors, and start to craft your proposition based on this information.
Pro tip: Once you have done this, find someone within your target audience and have them read your initial value proposition and explain it back to you. If their understanding easily resonates with your vision of the brand, you are using the correct language. If they have a hard time explaining, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
How to Format Your Value Proposition
Once you have gotten through the nitty, gritty details, you are ready to start looking at how to present your value proposition to the masses. First, you’ll want to start off with an eye-catching headline. This headline should be a short sentence briefly outlining the problems presented within your industry and the uniqueness of the solution your brand provides. Make sure to make it appealing and relevant to your audience.
The headline is then followed by a short section that briefly explains who you are, what your brand has to offer, and how it can solve the end-users problem. Here you will want to make key points of the benefits of your brand and how it can add more value to the consumer by solving the problems they faced by not utilizing your company or possibly using another. Finally, do not forget images! Properly utilized imagery can catch consumer’s attention and convey the emotion of what it is like to work with your brand versus another. Providing emotive imagery can further clarify the brand’s purpose and provide additional insight.
