“A great value proposition can help you connect with more prospects and boost your commercial success, but writing this kind of document can be very challenging and time consuming if you don’t go about it the right way. To take the pain out of the entire process, try following our five key steps to creating the perfect value proposition,” says Kristel Brown, Account Director, Writing Machine.
A great value proposition can help you engage with more customers and prospects and boost your conversion rates and sales revenues. But condensing the unique value of your products and services into a single, compelling document isn’t a trivial task – especially when multiple stakeholders are involved.
The question is, how can you take a step back, look objectively at your solution and its position in the market, and get a consensus of all stakeholder viewpoints across your company? And how can you use those insights to create a value proposition that’s as compelling, persuasive, and impactful as possible?
At Writing Machine, we have nearly 30 years’ experience creating value propositions for some of the largest technology companies in the world. Having been around the block (and around the block again), we’ve developed 5 key steps to create the perfect value proposition for your product or service:
- Start with customer challenges
Chances are, your prospects don’t care all that much about your company – yet. They’re more tied up, not surprisingly, with their own pain points and challenges, and they’re looking for solutions that make their working lives easier and more productive. That’s why you need to start any value proposition document with an overview of your customers’ challenges, not your own capabilities. - Introduce a ‘new way’ that makes things better
Once you’ve acknowledged your prospects’ challenges and pain points, it’s time to propose a ‘new way’ of doing things that can make their lives better. An example might be a company automating a process, or replacing dumb storage with something smarter in their datacentre, for example. Of course, the ‘new way’ should be very closely aligned to what your product or service offers – just don’t throw your brand and solution name into the mix yet. - Bring in your product or service as the ‘hero’ solution your prospect needs
OK, it’s time to introduce your product or service at last. That means explaining what it is, what it does, and – at a high level – about how it can help your customers overcome their legacy challenges with newer, faster, better, more efficient, more automated capabilities. - Explain why your solution is the best with ‘competitive messages’
The main focus of the value proposition is to explain to prospects why your solution is “the one”. This sounds simple, but it’s probably the hardest part of creating a great value proposition. This is because different stakeholders typically have different ideas on what makes your product or service unique, and technical folks in your organization may have a different viewpoint to those with more business-focused or commercial roles. In the end, it can all be just a bit, well, political with a small ‘p’. For these reasons, it’s important to interview everyone involved with the product to understand their viewpoints and to create a strong consensus of the key messages you’ll ultimately be communicating to your target audience. - Craft your document for readability and impact
Your value proposition will not be successful if readers get bored or find it difficult to read. This means that you should focus on structuring the document in a logical way, and you should – wherever possible – make sentences and paragraphs short and easy to understand. You also need to include clear, non-cryptic titles and subtitles to make the document easy to skim read. A strong, dynamic call to action is also needed to ensure your prospects get in touch or download your demo – or do whatever it is you want them to do when they’ve finished reading your value proposition.
How Writing Machine can help
At Writing Machine, we’ve been writing high-impact value propositions for some of the world’s largest technology companies for more than 30 years.
To deliver the value proposition your business needs, as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, we follow a tried and tested process, which includes:
- Desk research to fully understand the sector you operate in and where your product or service fits in the competitor landscape.
- In-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders at your company to reach a consensus for key ‘value messages’ to be featured in the proposition.
- Creation of a first draft of the value proposition that clearly outlines the unique value of your offering in a way that’s highly engaging and persuasive. To maximize the impact and quality of value propositions, all our editorial consultants use the Writing Machine Structured Writing Method™.
- A review process to integrate your feedback into the proposition and to gain buy-in from all key stakeholders.
- Sign-offs, final checks and proof-reading before your proposition is published.
Download our PDF
To find out more about how Writing Machine can help you bring the unique value of your solutions and services to life, please visit our website or download the pdf today.
Writing Machine Agency is one of the UK’s leading writing consultancies. We developed the Structured Writing Method in the 1990s and have been using it ever since to provide world-class marketing, sales and bid copywriting. Whether you want a single executive summary, a case study programme or a complete editorial solution for your whole business, our experienced team can partner with you. Get in touch to find out more.
