How to Create Your Unique Value Proposition in 5 Easy Steps
Do you know what your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is? If you said, “no,” it’s time to pause and create a statement that will set you apart from your competition. This statement creates the foundation for your marketing messages and strategies. It is the second most important tool in your marketing toolbox. You may be asking yourself what the number one tool is. I’ll give you one guess….YES!!!! It’s your avatar. You have to know who your avatar is so you can create your UVP. Everything in your business flows from knowing who your avatar is and what their values and goals are. Your UVP is the promised value your customers can expect from working with you. It lays out what separates you from your competitors, how you uniquely solve your customer’s problems, your specific outcomes, and why your target market should choose to work with you.
To put it simply your UVP should state:
How your product/service works
What makes it valuable
Why it’s better than similar products/services
Think of your UVP as an elevator pitch for your company. I should be short and sweet. If done well someone who has never heard of your company would know exactly what you do and who you serve. What is the purpose of your UVP?
To define who you are as a brand.
To state what you stand for,
To communicate what you do,
To disclose how you operate and
To reveal why you are the right choice to solve your potential client's most pressing problems.
There is so much noise in the online space, you need a strong UVP to set you apart from your competition. You want your customers to hear your name and think, “that’s the company/person who does ___ your unique solution___.”
How do you write a UVP? This statement is more than a tagline and you should be willing to commit some time to create it. To be impactful you need to know your customer well. So, if you haven’t taken the time to create a highly defined avatar, start there. Once you have clarity about who you’re targeting, you can describe how your product or service will benefit them. While you may have an idea about what you believe to be true about your product or service, set aside some time to do some research. Remember, you want to stand out from the competition, so it’s important to check out your competition and verify that your beliefs are on target. Just like your avatar needs constant updating, you need to keep your UVP updated. The more familiar you are with your customers, the more you will know exactly what your UVP should be. It should continually evolve with you as you grow your business and expand your services. So, let’s get started:
Step 1:
Don’t make the rookie mistake of believing that everyone is your potential customer. If you do, your message will get lost in all of the noise in the online marketing space. You will waste a lot of time and money if you don’t narrow down your niche by having a highly defined avatar. Evaluate the data you have on current paying customers if you have them. If you don’t, then go to where you think your ideal customer hangs out and gather as much market research as you can to fill in the blanks. You want to fully understand their pain points, what they’ve tried and failed at, and how you can uniquely solve their problem and help them achieve their goal. As you build out your ideal avatar, of course, you’ll include demographics like age, income, and education. But the magic happens when you include psychographic data. That information allows you to know what makes your avatar tick. It tells you how they make decisions, what motivates them to buy, what values are important to them, and why solving their problem matters. Once you get it written, run it by a sample group of people to get feedback. Remember you want this to be jargon-free. Use language that is easy to understand and is written in a format that is comfortable for your target audience to digest.
Step 2:
Provide compelling reasons why your potential customer should buy from you and not your competition. This is where research will help you stand out. Look at your competition from their mission statement to their offers. You can only set yourself apart if you know what is out there. If you’re visual, put together a comparative matrix to visualize how you stack up against your competition. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you don’t have any competition, even if you are a new brand in your industry. Try to keep this part of your UVP to 12 words or less.
Step 3:
Define the pain point that your product or service solves. Does your product or service do something that no other product or service does? If so, be sure to list it. Does it save time or money? Does it eliminate dreaded tasks? What makes your product or service a must-have item or a service they can’t live without? If you created a comparative matrix, cross off any items that are the same for you and your competition. The benefits that are left are what set you apart. Simply having the best product doesn’t always set you apart. Every business thinks they have the best product or service to take time to figure out how you meet the needs of your target customer better than anyone else.
Step 4:
People want to know about you and what you stand for. Are you in alignment with their values? If not, this will be a major hurdle for you to get over to convince them to buy from you. Make sure that what you stand for overlaps with your mission statement, you want to have a cohesive message.
Revise and refine this statement until you know that you stand out. If you can read it and it sounds like another company…you still have work to do. What do you want your customers to remember about you when they hear your product or brand?
Step 5:
Like a good headline, you want your UVP to hook potential customers’ attention. Carefully choose the problem you solve and the unique way you solve it. Remember, you want the right audience, the right message, and the right offer? Your UVP should be in alignment with all of those items.
You want to pique their interest so they want to know more about you and what you offer. If you can get them to take the next step, your UVP has been successfully written. Once you feel good about it, test, test, test. Like any other piece of marketing material, it will grow and change as you scale your business.
Taking time to create a compelling UVP will help set you apart from your competition.
If you’re having a tough time creating one, go back and review your business plan. That will help you gain clarity and keep you focusing on the right things. Your business plan should have all of the elements you need to create a kick-ass UVP including the problem you’re solving, how your business operates, who your ideal avatar is, and what your business stands for.