Selling your product in 2020 is only going to get tougher!
Research suggests that visitors to your website seal your fate in less than 15 seconds. Yes, you only get about one-fourth of a minute to amaze your site visitors before they potentially lose interest and move to other sites.
In other words – it is imperative to tell your visitors what you offer and how it will benefit them (your value proposition, of course) in a fraction of a minute or be ready to lose potential leads, which is dangerous for any business.
What Is A Sales Value Proposition?
We have already established the importance of conveying your sales value proposition succinctly and swiftly to your visitors. But first, are you sure you understand what is meant by a sales value proposition?
No problem if you answered that with a confused 'hmm.' This blog will tell you everything you need to know about value proposition, its meaning, and how to craft one for your business.
But, we'd like to start differently – by sharing what a sales value proposition is not. First and foremost, a sales value proposition is not a slogan. So, while slogans like “Just Do It,” “I’m Lovin’ It,” and “Open Happiness” have become synonymous with some brands – these are catchy taglines meant for advertising, not their value proposition.
A sales value proposition is also not a piece of information. For example – We sell computers. Well, okay – that’s great. But many companies sell computers, and such a statement shows no value to the user. Of course, one could embellish this statement and say – We sell the best computers in the world. Yet, once again, this is just a random statement with no proof or value proposition for the user.
So, what constitutes a value proposition?
In straightforward terms, a value proposition can be defined as a clear statement about the benefits an individual or an organization will gain from using your product, service, or solution.
Therefore, one could rather say – We sell hyper-fast computers that can be customized for your workforce for higher efficiency.
In the above statement, you tell the customer what to expect from your brand and why they should buy from you, which is the exact objective of a well-crafted value proposition.
If we breakdown some of the most effective value propositions by various brands, which we will share later in this article, we can say that a value proposition generally contains three components:
- A promise – That is, what you would deliver to your customers
- The benefits – What your customers will gain from buying from you
- Your USP – Or, why your customers should choose you over the competition
Here’s an example for you to understand the above clearly:
What you see above is an image of the Crazy Egg homepage, a website optimization platform that offers heat maps and A/B testing to boost your website’s performance. On top of the scroll – you can see the value proposition clearly – Crazy Egg promises to make your site better, instantly.
A tall claim?
Well, Crazy Egg has proved its mettle time and again, and there’s social proof right below the scroll that says over 300,000 customers use the platform to “improve what’s working, fix what isn’t, and test new ideas.” If that’s not enough, the website also offers a 30-day free trial for users to ‘see it and believe it.’ What’s there not to be impressed – right?
As you can see from the above example, while there is no right or wrong approach to crafting your sales value proposition, it is essential to deliver ‘value’ and make sure that it is among the first things your visitors see on your website.
So, if you already have a sales value proposition, like 69% of B2B firms, but don’t see the results, let’s start by discussing how to display your value proposition on your landing page. Next, we will share some interesting examples of compelling sales value propositions, followed by a quick and handy guide to crafting your sales value proposition in a jiffy.
Let’s dive in.
Displaying the Value Proposition on Your Landing Page
If you already have a sales value proposition, it is essential to display it correctly so that it is visible to your site visitors as soon as they land on your page. According to experts, the best place to display your sales value proposition is above the fold, with a short explanatory paragraph underlining it (like we saw in the Crazy Egg example above).
You may include the following elements with your sales value proposition to garner maximum attention and click-throughs:
- Your value proposition in the main headline
- An explanatory paragraph below the headline that explains your offering briefly
- A clear and well-defined call to action
- An attractive background image
The above list is quite self-explanatory, but we’d also like to share with you some proven tips to help you get more out of your sales value proposition:
- Choose your banner image intelligently – It is essential to use an attractive background image. However, refrain from images that are overly attractive or distracting. For example, using human faces is known to distract users, which means they won’t pay enough attention to your offering.
- Always A/B test your value proposition – Following from the point we mentioned above, in addition to testing various images to see what brings in maximum conversions – you must also check multiple versions of your value proposition to choose the most effective one.
- Remember the 15-second rule – Your sales value proposition must be able to inform a new visitor what you are selling and why they should buy it within 15 seconds. If it takes longer – rework your design or value statement, or both!
Crafting A Powerful Sales Value Proposition For More Conversions
A high-performing sales value proposition should include the following elements:
- It should be crystal clear and devoid of generic sentences.
- It must call out to your target customers and mention your offering
- It must state the pain points you are solving
- It must include your USP – or, what makes you better than the competition
To help you understand this visually, we scoured the internet for some excellent examples of high performing sales value propositions that are listed below:
1. Trello
Trello is a popular tool for visual organization, that boosts productivity as well as collaboration between teams. The sales value proposition above clearly states that Trello will make your information visible and help you work collaboratively so that you can get more work done.
The underlining paragraph goes on to inform you about the visual organization tools and also adds that using Trello can make work much more fun and rewarding. The call to action is clear – and mentions that Trello is entirely free to use, which makes it even more compelling.
2. Shazam
Shazam is a popular app that can be used to identify tracks in seconds. The value proposition on its website directly states this – “Name any song in seconds.”
In fact, for most products, it takes some time to demonstrate their core value to users fully. However, Shazam does it instantly, and it doesn’t shy away from telling this to visitors in the first look.
3. Zapier
Everybody uses several apps daily. Zapier, however, takes it upon itself to make our lives easier by connecting all these apps, so that one can take information from one app to the other seamlessly. The result – higher efficiency and extra convenience.
Their value proposition makes this amply clear by indicating that Zapier can be used with the most popular applications, such as Gmail, Facebook, WordPress, Slack, Twitter, etc., and requires zero coding or technical skills to set up.
It mentions ‘easy automation’ for its target audience – ‘busy people,’ while stressing on the benefit – ‘focus on your important work.’
4. Hotjar
Hotjar offers advanced website analytics and customer reviews as part of an affordable monthly package service.
The value proposition succinctly states the pain point it solves – that is, 'understanding your users' – and also mentions how it addresses it – through ‘visual’ insights that enable ‘fast’ actions for better results. In other words, Hotjar places itself as a simple and effective solution for busy business owners to provide them with easy-to-understand analytics for informed business decisions.
5. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a non-profit, mission-driven organization that offers free education to all. The value proposition is in line with their practical approach and clearly states that there is something valuable for every individual from every age group.
The underlining paragraph comes across as a mission statement but contributes to the value proposition, owing to the nature of the offering: “free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.”
4 Steps to Crafting a Winning Sales Proposition
A winning B2B sales value proposition must focus on a real problem and put a real value on the solution. It should, in other words, address the core need of a prospect and offer ‘value’ beyond any financial benefit.
To help you get it right, we have created a step-by-step guide to craft a winning sales proposition for your business.
Step 1: Defining Your Prospects' Pain Points
The most crucial principle in any B2B sales value communication is defining the problem and communicating it clearly and vividly to the target audience. For example, at Clodura, we have built an AI-driven platform that offers highly accurate marketing data to our users.
Now, while sharing our value proposition, we can go to a prospective client and tell him or her, “Hey, your sales representatives are wasting too much time on market research.” The prospect may agree with us – but this statement does not make much of a visual impact.
Instead, we’d rather share something more useful with the prospect – “Hey, did you know that your sales reps spend most of their time on market research and hardly any time in calling up your prospects? So, the money you are paying them for calling is being spent on market research, which also has several gaps – bringing down the efficiency of your entire sales team.”
As you would agree, the latter statement is more likely to catch the attention of the prospect, as it not only identifies a genuine problem but also ties it up to a financial value.
Draft 1 of the sales value proposition – Did you know your sales reps are spending most of their time on market research than reaching out to prospects?
Step 2: Spelling Out The Benefit
In Step 1, we pointed out the problem statement for the prospective user. Now, it is time to sell the solution.
But how?
By focusing on the features, right?
No – not at all. Don’t make that folly in your sales value propositions.
Your site visitors are not as interested in knowing your product features as knowing what ‘benefits’ it would deliver to them.
Remember, talking about the features will shift the focus to your product, which can be achieved at a later stage. However, talking about the benefits will keep the focus on the prospect, telling them exactly what they’d get out of using your product.
Draft 2 of the sales value proposition: Reduce the time spent by sales reps on market research to make sure they reach out to more prospects every day.
Step 3: Communicating the Value
Once the problem and the solution have been brought forth, it is time to communicate the value. Let’s understand this with the example we shared in Step 1.
As we mentioned before, if your sales reps are spending most of their time researching and say, only a couple of hours calling up new prospects, you are losing a lot of money. Besides, the data stored in your marketing database is known to decay at a rate of 30% annually, bringing down the efficiency of your sales team further. Now, if your team is supplied with clean and up-to-date marketing data automatically – it means they can spend more time calling every day. With increasing calling – even if they book one extra meeting every week, it could lead to hundreds of additional meetings in a year and, in all probability, more conversions and revenue.
Draft 3 of the sales value proposition: Boost your sales with automated marketing data that ensures your sales reps reach out to more prospects every day.
Step 4: Tie-Up Everything With a Compelling Statement
Step 4 is all about tying-up the above three elements into a compelling story that brings forth the problem, solution, and value instantly.
Draft 4 of the sales value proposition: Want to increase your sales figures effortlessly? Try Clodura for automated sales intelligence to reach out to more decision-makers every day.
Conclusion
According to HubSpot, a sales value proposition is one of the most critical conversion factors. Yet, up to 54% of companies do nothing to improve their value proposition. However, if you wish to gain more business, developing a strong B2B sales value proposition and displaying it correctly is key.
Here’s a snapshot of what you need to do to write a compelling sales value proposition:
- Define your audience
- Pinpoint their problem
- Share the solution
- Bring forth the value (your USP)
- Tie it all together in a simple yet powerful statement
