Value Proposition: 5 Steps to Craft a Compelling Statement for your Brand

What happens to a generic resume you receive for a job position open at your firm?
You will check it once and simply put it aside with a pile of other such resumes.

You do so because you couldn’t find anything that highlighted how your firm will benefit from hiring them.
That’s what a weak value proposition does to your brand. 

It doesn’t highlight what makes you the perfect fit for your target audience’s needs and becomes a resume stacked into a pile of generic brands in the market.

A study by Bain & Company states, “Companies that clearly communicate their value proposition to customers achieve 2x the customer satisfaction and loyalty rate of those that don’t”

In this blog of our series on Business Model Canvas, we will share with you the steps you need to follow for a compelling value proposition that will stand out in front of your recruiters 😉 (your target audience)

What is a Value Proposition Statement?

It is a clear, compelling statement that highlights how your customers will benefit from your products or services instead of the competitors’.

It emphasizes a customer’s challenge and then pitches your solution as the problem-solver with clear visible benefits.

Unlike a brand positioning that shows what sets your brand apart from its competitors in the niche, a value proposition focuses on how customers should perceive your value.

What’s the Need for a Value Proposition Statement?

It is the bridge between your product and your customer.
It translates your product’s distinguishing attributes into tangible benefits that resonate with your target audience, hence, driving sales, engagement and ensuring growth through your brand marketing efforts.

A well-defined value proposition quickly shares what buyers can expect from your brand and how it sets you apart from competitors.

How to Craft a Value Proposition Statement in X Steps?

1. Define your Target Segment’s Main Pain Point

To begin this step, you will need a broader understanding about your target segment and target audience groups to uncover their needs & pain points. 

You can work on it by looking at the data you have gathered about your buyer’s behavior, directly asking your customers for feedback, and incorporating social listening tools to uncover patterns.

For example, you have a freemium design software that offers a range of templates and lots of “How-tos” tutorials. 

Your target audience is looking for DIY design software that’s affordable and gives high-quality graphics. 

Here, your business’s offering/ value proposition is the solution they need.

2. List down all the Perks of your Product

Now, shift the focus to your product for this step.
You should list down all the features of your product or services along with a reason that shares “why” is it/ will be important to your customers.

Again, there are two best Market Research approaches to do this-

• Having focus groups and surveys to ask your customers to rate and talk about your features 
• Using social media listening tools to know the conversations they have about your products and that of competitors is the best way.

If we go with our design software example, you will list each template or tutorial video, share the benefit it provides, along with “why” a customer would need it.

3. Specify the Value this Benefit will offer

It’s a continuation of our last step of crafting a value proposition.
You have to add another sentence that thoroughly justifies “why” the benefit you give matters to the customers.

From our design software example, the value would be that business owners can design high-quality creatives with templates & tutorials – something that would cost them more if they were to hire a professional graphic designer.

4. Connect the Buyer’s Problems with Your Benefits

It’s time to now build a bridge between your buyer’s problems (from step 1) and the product’s benefits (from step 2).

Here you will pair your customer’s challenge/ problem with each feature you have listed to be valuable in the above step and ask, “Do they align?”

It will be a tiring step, but you have to keep going till the time you find a viable feature whose benefit is the most desirable to your target segment and addresses their main pain point/need.

5. Strike a Competitive Differentiation

A great value proposition is a blend of 3 things: your target audience’s need, your offering’s benefit, and your offering’s competitive advantage.

Honestly, you’re just a differentiation away from building a clear, benefit-driven, and believable value proposition statement.

Here you have to ask these questions –

1. Is there any product benefit that only you’re offering in its niche?

2. Do you have any customer service offerings that your competitors don’t?

3. Do you give any additional services for free that are chargeable by your competitors?
   

The answers to them will enable you to strike a differentiation while keeping the buyer’s need in focus.

Use Templates to Build Your Value Proposition

By now, you have every piece of information that will make your value proposition statement meaningful and believable, but you still need to refine it for better communication.

You should use examples and templates to give structure to your idea.

Here are a few to start with –

• Template #1 (from SEMRush)

“[Product/service] empowers [target customers] to [transformative outcome] by providing [unique features/value].”

• Template #2 (from Hubspot)

“For [target customer] who [needs or wants X], our [product/service] is [category of industry] that [benefits]”

• Template #3 (Steve Blank Method)

“We help (X) do (Y) by doing (Z)”

What Should Your Value Proposition Statements be like?

The best value propositions will

• Evolve with its Customers: 

Change is the law of life and even business. Your market’s state, your consumers’ behavior, and your business strategies and goals all change with time.

Hence, you should create feedback loops, revisit your value proposition from time to time, and adapt to stay relevant and ahead.

• Match the Tone of its Audience: 

Your value proposition has its target segment as the center focus. So it makes it vital for you to set a tone that reflects your brand, connects on a deeper level with your consumers, and enables your brand marketing efforts.

You should try to use words, phrases, and sentences they would use to describe their problem or your solution to make your proposition “click” with them at the very first glance.

• Focus on Clarity first:

You gather a lot of information in the pursuit of crafting a perfect value proposition.
Let’s admit that it’s tempting to include most of the things in the statement, but stop there.

Your value proposition has to be short yet detailed and clearly deliver the message to your audience.

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That’s all in the Value Proposition section of the Business Model Canvas.

You can schedule a workshop/ training session with Mili Kataria to build each section of a Business Model Canvas to ensure a robust foundation.

Pandora’s Box is a Business Consulting and Brand Marketing Agency that helps firms build robust, consistent, and differentiating presence online.