In order to stand out in an oversaturated market, you need to pay special attention to even the smallest element of your online presence.
Your value proposition may seem like nothing more than a couple of informative sentences meant to entice visitors to explore further. However, it can both help you communicate your unique selling points and lose the interest of your audience fairly quickly.
Here are seven tactics for writing value propositions that inspire engagement and, ultimately, conversions.
Be Economical
The first fact you need to bear in mind about value propositions is that they need to be short. The shorter, the better, without sacrificing meaning or value.
You don’t want to make first-time visitors read a bunch of text to get a sense of who you are. You want the message to be as clear as possible. Use a limited amount of words to encapsulate your core values, personality, and offer.
Start by writing down the key aspects of your brand. What do you want visitors to know about you? Then write several different versions until you come up with one you are satisfied with. You can go long at first and chisel away any superfluous words as you go. Give yourself several weeks for this process, as you will rarely get it right in one sitting.
Check out Trustshoring. They have a great value proposition that is just 11 words long, yet they manage to communicate several things: they provide both strategic support and actual code, plus they can help you launch an MVP or speed up your development process. It’s very economical but highly effective.
Be Relatable
You also want to make sure that the first thing a visitor sees on your website is something they can relate to.
Carefully consider two things: who you are as a brand and who your target audience is.
Start by identifying your brand voice. Are you more formal and professional or laid back and casual? Are you funny? Align your voice with your values and what feels most natural to you.
Then consider how that aligns with your audience. What are they expecting to see? What are their pain points, and what else are they exposed to by your competitors?
Let’s look at Smash.vc for our example. They’ve clearly done their research and have created buyer personas. They are targeting entrepreneurs who are slightly quirky, casual, and unconventional — people who are not likely to engage with a corporate tone.
This is why their casual but authoritative and knowledgeable approach works so well. They clearly know what they are talking about and understand that they don’t need to sound like corporate bankers to get their message across.
Reinforce Your Value with Visuals
The visuals you pair your value proposition with will be just as important as what you have to say. You, yet again, don’t want to overwhelm your visitors, but you do want to make them feel something.
Eliciting an emotional response is a good choice. That does not mean you need to make your visitors feel a strong emotion. They don’t need to feel uncomfortable, or excited, or joyful. They can feel calm and heard, or they can feel safe and in professional hands.
The same formula applies for choosing visuals as it did for creating the value proposition: align it with your core values and messaging (and with the rest of your design). First impressions matter in marketing, so you want to put your best foot forward.
Let’s look at another example to see what you can do. Startup Resources is a site that rates and reviews tools. They also offer lots of helpful tips on running and establishing a startup. Their key product is their newsletter, which they show you above the fold.
This is a very simple but effective approach. They present the newsletter as a professional, knowledgeable, no-nonsense resource you would be happy to see in your inbox.
List Your Features
You can also use your value proposition to give your visitors a list of your features and core functionalities. However, you don’t want to do this by simply rattling off items. You want to provide a point of interest and engagement and then explain what it is you can do for your audience.
This works very well for brands that have a lot to offer and who can have a hard time distilling their offer down to just one thing. If it’s important to your audience to know exactly what they can expect or how you are different from other similar brands, this is a good way to go.
Check out SEMRush. They tell you what the benefit of their tool is: get measurable results. But they then also tell you exactly what you can use the tool for, so you understand that they cover every aspect of SEO and content marketing you can think of. They are the only tool you will need.
This approach sets them apart from their main competitor, Ahrefs, who have gone for a very similar approach, but they only focus on the benefits you can get: they don’t tell you immediately that they are an all-in-one solution in as many words. They just say they are “everything you need.”
Say Something Outrageous
Perhaps the most obvious way to say something unique is to say something outrageous: something that will certainly get you a response from your audience.
This can be a clearly wild claim that you then explain. It can be a funny statistic, a joke, or even a swear word, if your audience will respond to it and understand it in the way it was intended.
This approach will only work if the rest of your online presence matches this tone. You don’t want to lead with something very unusual and then write bland copy elsewhere.
One of the best examples of this style of value proposition is Saddleback Leather. Here’s what they have to say about their products:
That has certainly not left you unmoved. It testifies to the sheer quality of the brand’s products, but it also tells you they are completely different from other leather goods brands. They have adopted a bit of that Wild West tone, and to great effect.
This same style can be seen in their product descriptions, in their brand story, and everywhere you look. They are not afraid to tell you they are excellent and non-conformist.
Say It with a Video
You can also use video to enhance your value proposition. Note that you will still need to write something great, and let the video add another layer of meaning and information.
Also, remember that not all of your visitors will watch the video. Some of them might be at work or unable to play sound, while others will simply not want to waste time watching a minute-long video. They will just want to get to the product or service itself.
Make playing the video optional, and accompany it with a clear, effective value proposition. Don’t autoplay the video, and don’t make the sound infinitely louder than it needs to be. Add captions to it so that even the people who mute it get the full experience.
You can use the video format to explain what the product is and how it works, to tell your brand’s story, or you can even ask your customers to provide testimonials. Muse, for example, has a benefits-oriented explainer video that shows you how the product works and what you can expect from it.
It’s a great way to see a very unusual product in action, especially as you might have difficulty understanding what it does.
Say It with Social Proof
Another way to enhance your value proposition is to add some social proof to it. Show off awards, media features, quality badges, testimonials, ratings, and anything that will show your visitors that others have bought and loved your product or service.
Consider what the most likely conversion obstacles are for your audience and address them. Don’t make outrageous claims that you can’t back up. If you say you are the most awarded brand in your industry, you’d better show those awards too.
Try not to overwhelm your visitors with too much social proof. Select one or two types and include them in your heading. There’s plenty of room on the page for the rest of it.
Beardbrand does a great job with their value proposition. They tell you they’ve been in business for over a decade and that they are the most trusted brand in their niche.
They then back this claim up by showing you the major publications that have featured them. Clearly, they know what they are doing and can be trusted to deliver a great product.
Wrapping Up
Consider which of these tactics for writing clever and engaging value propositions will help your brand the most. You may even discover that you can combine several of them to achieve your desired effect and effectively communicate what you are all about.
