How can you really get to understand your customer with the Value Proposition Canvas?
The Global Pricing Study (2014) showed that 72% of all the new products and services that are introduced to the market fail when they are meeting expectations; and is Dr. Tacke et ál (2014) on their book “Profitable Innovation†who mention that the companies whose innovations succeed, despite being in difficult environments to do it, is because they integrated marketing and pricing into their processes the right way from the product inception onwards. And when it is talked about the marketing, here a major key is to understand the customer, what he wants and/or needs, and the tool to intentionally visualize and test how to create value for the customer is the value proposition canvas.
It is composed of the customer profile and the value map. Is in the customer profile where you can 1) describe the jobs your customer is trying to get done in functional, social or emotional, 2) highlight the pains that annoys the customer to get those jobs done and that they are trying to avoid, and 3) outline the customer gains describing how the customer measure the success of the job, being these the positive outcomes that the customer hopes to achieve. The customer profile helps to visualize test and track the understanding you have of the people or companies you are intending to create value for. Its aspects of a map assist everything to be clearer the more we learn about customers.
In the second part, the value map, is where you list all the product and services the value proposition builds on and helps to describe in which way these products, services and features are the pain relievers that eliminates, reduce or minimize the customer′s pains so they can make their life easier. Also, with it you can outline the way the creation has increased outcomes and benefits that the customer expected and desired. It’s a way to make explicit how the products and services relieve the pains and create gains for the customer.
Knowing how to use this method is a great way to figure out what resonates with customers. This is achieved by creating all the connections between what matter to the customer, and how are the product, services and features you are offering to benefit on the pains and gains the customer have. But the value proposition target only essential customer′s jobs, pains and games, because they may have countless ideas in these areas, but is with the value map that you decide and highlight which ones are you intended to focus on.
Yet, besides all this, it is important to keep in mind that even if you make and outstanding value proposition, it still can fail if the rest of the business model has flaws. Companies that are successful make a relationship with the value proposition and the profitable businesses. It’s ideal to make this value proposition canvas to create the products and services the customer surely wants, and related with all the other marketing and pricing studies you must have.
References:
- Simon-Kucher. (2014). Press release about The Global Pricing Study 2014. Recovered from https://www.simon-kucher.com/sites/default/files/simon-kucher_global_pricing_study_2014.pdf
- Dr. Tacke, G., Vidal, D. and Haemer, J. (2014). Profitable Innovation. California, U.S.A.: Smashwords Edition.