Your customers have more options than ever in the internet era. The days of going to the local hardware store, grocery store, or insurance agent to get what you need are long gone. Your customers can now find dozens of your rivals by using Google.

Customers will either buy from the rival who best conveys their value to them or base their decision only on price if you don’t make it apparent why they should choose you above those competitors. How then can you differentiate yourself from the competition, grab clients’ interest, and encourage sales based on your value rather than your price? You articulate and establish your distinctive value proposition.

A value proposition is a succinct, memorable sentence that sums up why buyers should choose you over your rival. A strong value proposition will focus on the feature that appeals to your buyer the most. This makes it a distinct value offer because, ideally, it is also a benefit that your rivals aren’t promoting.

How to Communicate Value

If you want to promote successfully, draw in clients, and boost revenue, you must effectively communicate your value offer. Continue reading to discover the five steps for defining and communicating your value proposition.

Step 1: Know your buyer personas.

Your most effective value proposition will speak directly to what your customer cares most about. Before you can develop a unique value proposition, you have to really understand what matters to your ideal audience. What are their goals? Their challenges? Their fears? What problems do you help them solve?

Instead of assuming you know what customers want, it’s always a good idea to ask them. That’s why surveying your customers is a critical step to developing buyer personas. Buyer personas empower you to understand what your customers care about, so you can speak to their goals in your unique value proposition.

When you take time to know your buyer personas, you may be surprised to find that what your customers value most is something you’ve overlooked in your advertising—and it may be something none of your competitors is explicitly offering either! Insights like these are extremely valuable as you develop a unique value proposition to communicate your value to customers.

Step 2: Speak to the needs of your target audience.

Once you’ve surveyed your customers and developed buyer personas, look at where your customers’ needs and your product or service intersect. How do you deliver what your target audience wants or needs? And how do you do this differently than your competitors?

As you move forward in defining your unique value proposition, try completing the following sentences from your customer’s perspective (remember to refer back to those buyer personas!):

• I want to buy this product or service because it will help me _______.
• The best part of this offer is _______.
• I want to buy from this brand instead of another brand because ______.

Not only should your unique value proposition speak to the problem you solve, it should also communicate the exact results your customers will enjoy. Get specific about the benefit of choosing you; numbers and percentages can make your unique value proposition even more powerful.

Geico uses numbers to communicate a unique value proposition in their advertising.

Step 3: Create memorable offers.

Now it’s time to write your unique value proposition. An effective value proposition is short and memorable. This isn’t the same as an elevator pitch, which communicates everything your company does in a sentence or two. Instead, your value proposition is just a few words that communicate a particular benefit your customers will enjoy when they buy from you.

Read Also: Transforming Brand Negatives Into Positives

The goal here isn’t to craft something cute or clever. A vague catchphrase will only confuse your customers—and confused customers don’t buy. The most powerful value proposition statements are extremely direct and clear.

Saddleback Leather Co.’s value proposition (“They’ll Fight Over It When You’re Dead”) is clever, but more importantly, it’s extremely clear and memorable. It communicates the quality and longevity of the product and speaks to the target audience’s desire to leave a legacy. 

Step 4: Get your team to communicate your value proposition.

You can write the most memorable value proposition in the world, but if it never leaves your Word document, it’s not going to do you any good. Now it’s time to make your entire team aware of your business’s unique value proposition—and not just the members of your sales and customer service team!

When you teach your team members to communicate your value proposition, there will be consistency in the word-of-mouth promotion of your brand. Team members should be able to communicate your value proposition when…

• Answering questions about what they do or where they work
• Speaking with a prospect or customer
• Connecting with suppliers
• Or any other time they talk about your company to others!

When your entire team gets on board with communicating your value proposition, they’ll have a clear understanding of how their work serves customers and can become powerful ambassadors for your brand everywhere they go.

Step 5: Use your value proposition everywhere!

While any member of your team can use your unique value proposition in conversations, your marketing team should be communicating your value proposition across all your communications platforms. Put it in the banner at the top of your website, below your logo in direct mail campaigns, in the bios for your social media profiles, and anywhere else you can reasonably put the phrase.

When you’re compiling case studies or choosing testimonials to feature, look for ones that highlight the specific type of success you’re advertising in your unique value proposition. Don’t worry about repeating your unique value proposition too much in your marketing conversations. Repetition is key to getting your value to stick in prospects’ and customers’ minds.

If you want your business to grow, your customers and potential customers have to be able to quickly discern what sets you apart from competitors. Even if you and your competitors offer very similar products or services, you can always find and communicate at least one characteristic that makes you different. Your unique value proposition may highlight your ironclad guarantee, your wide selection, your free returns, or any other unique benefit that resonates with your customers.

Remember that your value proposition has to actually speak to your customers’ goals or problems. This is critical, so don’t just guess at what your target audience wants to hear—ask them!

What Does Communicating Value to Customers Include?

All members of a business, including its clients, must be able to communicate. When a firm tells clients what a product, service, or business can accomplish for them, it is engaging in value communication. This may be done via advertisements, social media, or email. You may enhance your communication skills in a work situation by learning more about how to convey value to customers.

Value communication occurs when a company highlights to customers the advantages or benefits of its goods. Businesses use advertisements and marketing strategies to develop value propositions that help convince potential leads to become customers. These adverts frequently describe the kinds of values a good or service might offer a consumer. Value includes a variety of aspects of a product, such as its cost, use, convenience, and usefulness to the consumer. Customers may find a product desirable if it is less expensive than similar products or has unique features.

Numerous components go into conveying value to customers, some of which are listed below:

1. Product uniqueness

When marketing leaders want to convince a lead to become a customer, one value they may emphasize about a product is how it’s different from others. Emphasizing differentiation can help the customer realize that a company’s product solves unique needs and specific wants that other items don’t. Product uniqueness can help a customer realize a need that they didn’t notice they had before. If a customer learns that a product is unique compared to another product they already own, the new product may even replace the old one.

2. Customer convenience

Customer convenience is how easy it is for a lead to become a customer. It also applies to how easy it is for a customer to remain loyal. Companies can do this for customers in several different ways by simplifying the buyer’s process. For example, by including a quick checkout feature in addition to an option to view a shopping cart online, customers have the option to complete a purchase more quickly and conveniently.

Another way that companies can improve customer convenience is by offering small incentives for viewing or buying from a website store. For example, if a company emails a customer that offers a small discount for purchasing from a website that day, the customer may feel inclined to do so from that offer alone. The convenience of a discount or helpful features can help bring value to a product or service.

3. Pitch consistency

When showing value to customers, it can be important to keep a constant pitch for many reasons. A pitch is an offer or description a business makes for a customer on why they should buy a product. Keeping a pitch consistent means that the company emphasizes the same features in the same way across a majority of its advertisements.

Maintaining the same pitch and talking about the same features can both help customers remember the offer and reconsider the product over time. The more consistently they see the same advertisement, the more likely they may be to consider and acknowledge the product’s value.

4. An advertising medium

Another element of value communication is the advertising medium that companies use. Different advertising mediums affect customers in various ways, offering numerous options for conversions depending on the type used. For example, a social media advertisement serves a different demographic and offers different incentive options than a TV commercial on a documentary channel.

A social media post may be able to reach a younger audience, while a commercial on a documentary channel may have an older viewership. Creating value for customers involves knowing the customer demographic and what that group values most in their products.

If you want to communicate value to customers, consider some of the following steps below:

1. Review and highlight your product’s benefits

One of the first steps toward demonstrating a product’s value to your customers is by showing how your product benefits them. This can be through many kinds of methods, such as a slogan, a commercial or even a mission statement. Identifying your customer’s problems and how they solve them with products similar to your own can help you evaluate what your product needs to do to keep their attention. Throughout any advertisement attempt, consider consistently showing a product’s benefits and conveniences, especially if you can compare them to other similar products.

2. Compare methods

As you advertise your products to an audience, one way you can learn more about what shows your customers value is by comparing different advertisements to each other. An A/B test is when marketing leaders make the same advertisement twice by using slightly different methods. After a period, marketing leaders look at the results of each advertisement and see which one worked more effectively. Running A/B tests on your value proposing advertisements can help you quickly learn what works and what doesn’t for your target audience.

After many layers of A/B testing, you may discover that the headline, medium, target audience and the product you advertise all affect how the customer receives the message. Even the time of day when the advertisement goes live can impact how well the customer receives your message.

3. Offer proofs

One way you can show your customer that your product has value is by offering proof of the product’s quality. Proofs are instances where the customer either sees or reads how a product can be beneficial or valuable. These can include visual demonstrations that show what a product can do either through a TV advertisement or a live presentation. Proofs can also be testimonials from customers who’ve bought the product previously.