OBA Clients: Your Value Proposition or Unique Selling Proposition

This one statement will ultimately keep visitors on your site for longer and help convert them into enquiry leads and clients/customers.

Your Value Proposition (or USP – ‘Unique Selling Proposition’) is a succinct, specific, sticky statement, written for your target audience, suggesting what’s unique and highly desirable (valuable) about your service(s).

This should be 1-3 lines of text displayed (ideally) across your home page banner. In effect, it acts as the home page headline (or tagline) for your business. Most importantly, it’s what tells your audience why they SHOULD choose your service(s) over others. It reflects the VALUE you can provide to your audience which your direct competitors can’t or don’t.

The problem is most businesses (including large organizations) neglect to communicate this core value to their audience as it can often be a real challenge to come up with an accurate or decent value proposition.

In this respect, here’s the 5 main qualities of an effective value proposition:

1. UNIQUE: The part of your service(s) or the desirable outcome of your service(s) which your competitors can’t say or don’t say.
2. DESIRABLE: How much do your prospects want what’s unique about your service(s)?
3. SPECIFIC: It includes something definite and tangible (recognisable to your industry)
4. SUCCINCT: It’s not as wordy as a mission statement and can easily be read within 8 seconds (eg. 1-3 text lines)
5. STICKY: It’s likely your visitor will find it memorable – not recite it, but definitely recall it.

Examples of Successful (& Popular) Value Propositions

Here are some well-known examples of companies/brands with value propositions using the 5 qualities above:

– Lewis Road Creamery:
Everything we make is made the way it’s meant to be.

– M&Ms:
The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hands.

– Kayak:
Search hundreds of travel sites and save up to 25% on the same hotel.

Create or Develop Your Value Proposition Further

*Your value proposition will only work if it includes (at least) ONE highly desirable benefit which is exclusive to your business.

To get started (or improve your existing value prop), grab a pen and piece of paper and write down some ideas using the 2 questions below to guide you. Your answers need to relate to what your target customers/clients desperately WANT.

(i) What are the UNIQUE benefits of your service(s)?
(ii) What are the DESIRABLE benefits of your service(s)