As we discussed in our blog post, The Ultimate 2020 Website Strategy Playbook, it’s time to take a good look at what’s been working for your B2B brand and what might need some additional attention. You may have already done a website audit, gone over your budget for the upcoming year, and reassessed your SEO strategy. But we’re going to take a wild guess and assume it’s been a while since you’ve refreshed your value proposition. Don’t feel bad! That’s why we’re here. Let’s why you should take another look at this and how to do it.
What is a value proposition?
In simple terms, your brand’s value proposition is what entices customers into being interested in your product. It helps you align your marketing strategies to what gets your customers’ attention and what convinces them to seal the deal.
Entrepreneur Daniel Nilsson points out that, on average, you have about seven seconds to make an excellent first impression with someone who’s looking into your business. So your B2B value proposition needs to be quick and snappy. That’s not to say that it’s a slogan or catchphrase, though. It needs to encompass both what your company does and how it serves your customers. Think of it more like the elevator pitch you use to describe yourself as a professional. Only about your business instead. At SmarkLabs, our value proposition is, “Driven by research, authentic content, and strategic marketing campaigns, we help tech-focused B2B companies accelerate revenue growth.”
Why it might need a refresh
Remember how bright-eyed and naive you were when you first started your business? Think about how much you’ve learned since then. You’ve learned more about your industry, you’ve learned through trial and error what works and what doesn’t, and you’ve learned more about what your customers are looking for when they come to you.
While a company’s value proposition is usually determined early on, especially when you’re building the website, there’s no reason to be married to that value prop. Like most things when it comes to business, your value proposition is fluid. So you should reassess it periodically as you learn more about your customers, and as your B2B brand grows and evolves.
In your early days, you probably didn’t have a clear idea of what your company was going to really do. Maybe potential customers come to your website and are still greeted with hyperbolic claims of you being the “best” in your industry. Don’t worry, though. That’s a common misstep that’s easy to remedy with a thoughtful new value proposition. Now you know, and you can relay that information to your potential customers.
How to determine your new value proposition
Exo B2B suggests starting by determining the value you bring to your customers’ problems, challenges, and objectives. Chances are, as your team has grown and learned its strengths, this is different than it was when you established your value proposition years ago.
Luckily, we’ve gone over some tools you can use to help you with this in our blog post, 3 Tools to Help You Create a Strong B2B Value Proposition. But if you’re elaborating upon an old value proposition or creating a new one from scratch, think about the following questions to make sure you’re really speaking to what your company does now:
- What do you offer your customers?
- Who are your customers?
- What sets you apart from other companies in your industry?
As you know, we’re huge advocates for collaboration between your sales and marketing teams. When it comes to developing your new value proposition, we have yet another reason to emphasize that importance.
Many think of your value proposition as something that lives on your website. However, it should be a more significant part of your brand than that. Work together to create a value proposition that’s as effective when spoken by a sales rep as it is on your homepage.
The impact on customer experience
Conversion rate optimization firm Invesp suggests testing your value proposition with an unbiased reader (or two, or three!) and asking them about the impression they got from it. Is that the message you want to send to potential customers? You can also run A/B tests on your homepage and see if one moves people along the website more than the other.
The key to keeping a customer moving through your sales funnel is to make things simple and easily accessible. Start with having a good value proposition that speaks to what your company can do for them at this point. When a potential customer speaks with you or a sales representative or takes a look around your website, you want them to take away the most crucial points about your business and what it can do for them.
Think about it; you have competitors. Your competitors have their own value propositions. Your competitors have that same seven seconds to get a potential client’s attention that you do. Make sure yours is good enough that they won’t even take the chance to look at anyone else.