3 techniques to improve your value proposition

Even if your visitors can understand your writing … even if they can use your website … and even if you offer what they came for … they may not understand ❌—or like—your value proposition.

What is a value proposition?

The seller’s perspective:

⮑ Value Proposition = Benefits − Costs

The buyer’s perspective:

⮑ Value Proposition = Pros − Cons

Three ways brands fail to communicate their benefits (the pros)—and several ways to fix the problems

1. Many companies don’t make it clear what the product or service does

"Plain language almost always beats branding waffle."

When products are sold using vague language, the results can be disastrous. The visitors don’t understand what they’ll get.

For example:

🟥 Branding waffle: “Music, Meet Home.”

🟩 Plain: “The world’s leading speaker system: Play any song in any room from any phone.”

Another example:

🟥 Branding waffle: “Introducing the oases of freshness: The Aquaris, the Tritona, the Anapos.”

🟩 Plain: “Drink pure, freshly-filtered water every day (and avoid single-use plastic).”

Many marketers aren’t aware that their website has this problem. The problem goes beneath the radar because visitors seldom report that they are “struggling to understand the value proposition.”

Instead, they say things like, “I’m still researching.”

Also, most unclear descriptions aren’t as obviously bad as the ones above. The best way to identify unclear benefits is through user testing (explained in previous post).

During user tests, listen for clues that the users haven’t understood the product or service. For example, you may find that a user’s objections to buying don’t make sense. Or that the user has gone quiet.

2. Some companies forget to mention valuable benefits

For Example, a mobile company gave away a high-quality travel adapter with every travel phone they sold—but never mentioned it ❌.

When they added the adapter to the website, sales increased ✅. So they added it to the offline marketing campaigns too. This was one of the many factors that allowed us to triple their sales in one year.

To ensure that you aren’t making this mistake, list all of the elements of value that your visitors get, and then check that your website communicates them all clearly. It can help to order the product yourself, so you can see the whole package with your own eyes.

Also, ask your customers why they bought, and then ensure that all of their reasons are featured in your marketing materials with appropriate prominence.

3. Many companies don’t make it clear what happens once the visitor says yes

Many websites—particularly those that sell services—don’t help their visitors imagine the post-order experience. There are many ways to overcome this problem. The following method, common in Japan, is rarely seen in the Western world. Japanese consumers expect to be shown what they are going to get. All Japanese restaurants, for example, have plastic food in their windows, showing what each meal looks like.

(Yes, the “food” in the image at the top of this page is plastic—despite looking better than most of the meals we cook at home.)

Similarly, many Japanese companies display cartoon flow charts that show what will happen once a visitor orders the product or service.

Think beyond the sale!!!

✅ Answer the questions that the visitors are asking:

⮑ “If I order this product or service, what will happen next? What will be the process I follow?”

✅ Allow the visitors to rehearse mentally

⮑ the process of using the service, visualising it as being part of their lives.

To summarise, ask three questions about each of your products or services.