DO YOU WANT TO ESTABLISH YOUR PROFITABILITY AND SECURE YOUR COMPETITIVENESS? – Start With Your Unique Value Proposition

Marketing Strategy originates from and is based on a set of well-defined marketing goals. Your company’s “Big Fat Marketing Strategy” includes different specific strategies (e.g. Content Marketing Strategy, Email Marketing Strategy, Social Media Strategy, etc.) furthermore, segmenting the market, identifying the ideal target audiences and describing the audience profiles, making differentiation and positioning decisions, cost planning and resource allocation, and choosing the marketing mix.

Still, many SMB owners, Entrepreneurs and Solopreneurs fall into the trap that they don’t have a clear marketing strategy with realistic marketing goals and are thus basically directionless. In some cases, goals have already been set, but no corresponding SMART Strategic Objectives have been assigned on how to achieve them. At the same time, they send messages and sales pitches to random people who will never buy from them.

Or just think of the common mistakes in Social Media, when people are obsessed with numbers and their main goal is to collect likes at any cost. The main problem here is that they often have no idea about what they are doing - although by their understanding their intention is reaching a high number of likes - and at the same time, they have not defined a clear strategic goal on why they want to get more and what is their purpose with it. More importantly, they didn't define how they can profit from all this business-wise.

That doesn't sound good, right?

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Whenever you put together a marketing strategy, always start with your goals where you define a broader outlook on how your company/brand can benefit from your marketing activities. Marketing Objectives define WHAT you want to accomplish with your Marketing Strategy, while the Marketing Strategy determines HOW will you accomplish your Marketing Objectives in the longer term.

Small businesses should limit the number of Strategic Objectives to 3 or 4 to increase the chances that they will be achieved. Especially because taking into consideration that we live in a heavily disrupted world where many circumstances are unforeseen and significant changes or such events as the global pandemic might happen out of a sudden, having fewer goals on their plate makes adjusting or modifying them easier.

“A well-defined and feasible Marketing Strategy not only differentiates your brand on the market and enhances your competitive edges but if it’s implemented right and by following a customized blueprint according to your business goals, it also enables you to fulfil the needs of your customers/clients.” (Strategyscope)

Although many SMB owners, Entrepreneurs, and Solopreneurs are using some forms of marketing, and there are those who at least have a basic strategy for using their Social Media pages (which is not equal to the Marketing Strategy!), unfortunately, only a few of them are able to achieve brand attachment and build customer loyalty through their marketing initiatives, which is a huge mistake!

Let’s think with the customer’s head. Would you buy from a company that simply tells you what services they provide or what products want they to sell, but doesn’t give you any added value or offer specific benefits? And they never have a special sale, or ask you how they can serve you better? Or would you rather choose someone who has a wide range of services or product range, who provides excellent customer service, who is flexible and delivers your order on time, who also gives some loyalty benefits and goes the extra mile? Moreover, when buying from them you feel like you really matter as a customer or client?

I assume that you'll cast your vote for the second one without hesitation, right?

So as to stand out and make your customers be able to spot the main differences between you and your competitors, that why you are the best choice for them and why should they jump on your irresistible offer, you must propose to them something unique and valuable like no one else does.

??? HOW DO YOUR UVP AND USP INFLUENCE YOUR SALES REVENUE?

Beyond some key elements detailed in the previous articles of the Strategyscope newsletter , the Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and the Unique Selling Point (USP) should be central to the comprehensive Marketing Strategy that refers to both the company and to you as an Entrepreneur/Solopreneur.

“More importantly, these components have a direct effect not only on your marketing and advertising campaigns, the conversion rates and sales, your brand equity and the reputation as an employer and your overall operations, but also influence how you can grow or scale your business.” (Strategyscope)

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?? UVP (Unique Value Proposition) – It’s a fundamental and highly important business strategy decision in the first place that defines the strategic model of how a company wishes to differentiate itself from the competition. It’s a statement about the value the company or brand promises to its target audiences and its core is the strongest persuasive argument for your customers/clients why they should buy from you or use your services. Through your UVP you highlight

• how you can solve their problems,
• what’s in it for them,
• how do you serve their needs,
• and what unique experiences they get when working with or buying from you.

E.g: “We provide TAX accountancy services for small businesses and entrepreneurs on the domestic market.”

The UVP also helps to unify the company’s overall actions by giving direction to the whole team.

??? USP (Unique Selling Point) – Briefly, it’s about WHY TO CHOOSE YOU, what are the specific benefits that set you as a company, your products, and services apart from other market players. It focuses on differentiation, and why you are better than your competitors. It also gives a brief description of “How do you deliver the value you promise?” ?

E.g: “We Save you Money and Relief Stress While you are Sleeping.”

??? ALIGNMENT TO THE STRATEGY – THE MAIN DIFFERENCES

As it was described above, both must be embedded into and aligned with the overall business and marketing strategy. At first glance, many people feel that there’s no difference between the two terms or there’s just a fine line. The truth is that there’s a fundamental difference as it’s important to understand that the UVP is a solid strategic element from which you have only one. While a USP is flexible and you can create more than one – in fact, it is necessary to use several different USPs in order to tailor them to different target audiences. In case you provide different services in both B2B and B2C segments, your USPs should be offered accordingly.

?? CONSISTENT COMMUNICATION IS KEY!

It's important to underline that the UVP and your USPs walk hand in hand and how you communicate them to your target audiences is mission-critical!

Your Unique Value Proposition is

???? CLEAR, INTUITIVE, and EASY TO UNDERSTAND – When composing your UVP, bear in mind that your potential targets and also your existing customers and buyers must understand it easily without any further explanations needed and they must perceive it the same way you meant.

???? STRUCTURE, STYLE, TONE OF VOICE – If you want your value proposition to stand out, you have to design the structure, the style, and the tone of voice carefully and in alignment with your Brand Identity and Brand Communication guidelines.

An impactful Value Proposition

• has a clear and strong headline that communicates the delivered main benefits from the customer’s point of view, and it’s a memorable sentence that can be a catchy slogan too.
• In many cases, a sub-headline is added to the main headline to support it by giving a deeper explanation of why your company/brand is the forerunner in your niche or pointing out in 3-4 additional sentences the product/service benefits and specific details.
• The main headline must work as a standalone message but by incorporating it with the sub-headline the aim is to make it much easier to digest.

???? ROLE AND PURPOSE – The reason you must invest in crafting your UVP is the fact that depending on the touchpoint and the phase of the marketing funnel where the given prospect perceives it, a well-defined UVP might turn them into a paying customer, can bring you more business opportunities and might attract talents.

The main purpose of your UVP is evidently to engage and convince any of your target groups from???????

• the buyers,
• clients,
• business partners,
• suppliers or other stakeholders
• up to your Employees and future Employees!

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?? EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION – Employer Branding is another core area where the value that the company promises has a strategic role both internally for the existing Employees and externally in terms of engaging the future workforce. The Employee Value Proposition is defined as a set of rewards and benefits that are given to Employees in return for performing well at work and has a big impact on both Employee retention and talent acquisition.

It’s important to bare in mind that communicating empty promises while not delivering them in reality, can hit back hard! So, the main point is not just generating buzz on the job market aiming for creating the image of an attractive workplace but you have to ensure great Employee Experience (EX) in the long run!

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Conclusions:

?? Above all this, in order to define your Value Proposition, you must deeper understand what your customers think about your company, your services, and products, how they differentiate you from the competitors, and what makes them convince to buy from you in reality.

What matters is NOT WHAT YOU THINK about WHAT customers MIGHT THINK! So, we can't stress this out enough and repeat it from time to time: NEVER ASSUME! Always do your research and analysis to understand who they are and what they need.

Creating a UVP that is nothing more than an empty balloon is a huge risk. Just like when you skip to review and re-evaluate it regularly. Why? Because the economic conditions are changing and so does the market in terms of opportunities and competitiveness. There are new trends and players showing up and not to mention how dynamically customer expectations change in this heavily disrupted world.

Remember, it’s you who defines the value you propose and it’s your Unique Value Proposition where you start to establish your profitability and secure your competitiveness!

In the upcoming issues of Strategyscope we will dive deeper into how to fine-tune your UVP and how to align your USPs to it, so stay tuned!

Editor’s Note: Marketing Strategy is a huge subject with several various verticals and aspects. Strategyscope will further continue to discuss this subject but doesn’t intend to replace Wikipedia and high-quality professional marketing resources either. Rather give you guidance, and share best practices based on real-life experiences and client cases while keeping you up to date.        

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??If you want to broaden your knowledge about how to craft your Marketing, Branding and Content Strategy, stay tuned because more details will be described in the upcoming issues of the STRATEGYSCOPE newsletter.

STRATEGYSCOPE is the Marketing, Branding & Content Strategy Compass for your business boost. Each week the newsletter covers various topics within these 3 key areas to guide SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) Entrepreneurs, and Solopreneurs to fine-tune their strategies and utilize the potential of Marketing for their sustainable growth.

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