Why should your customer buy from you? The power of a value proposition.

We see a lot of different businesses in a year at Fireworx. Some corporates, some start-ups and plenty of SME’s. Each one has a different creative, marketing or digital need. We’ve had clients who needed help in creating a new platform to help investors find some of the world’s most awesome opportunities, helped our amazing NHS recruit more nurses and created an award winning identify for a Fintech start-up shaking up financial services.

We can build websites, manage social accounts and run Google Adwords campaigns. And all the rest of it. Let’s call it a toolkit we deploy to communicate to customers. But that’s all they are…tools. They’re not the starting point for us, or even the end of the journey. They’re just delivery channels. Fundamentally, everything starts with a client’s proposition, because whatever we deliver no matter how good it is, or how slick the customer experience, it will not deliver the results they want if the proposition isn’t right.

So, what does a good value proposition look like?

At Fireworx our starting point with a new client is the question their customer asks themselves when they are researching their product; “Why should I make this purchase?” This is where the problems start. A list of product features or perceived benefits is not a proposition. “We sell nuts and bolts in an easy to hold plastic bag…” does not sell the benefit to the customer. It doesn’t tell the customer how it is going to make their life easier, or how it outperforms the competition.

So, what is a ‘value proposition’? According to the dictionary;

A business or marketing statement that summarises why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. This statement should convince a potential consumer that one product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings.

Most businesses don’t have a Value Proposition!

If, like many of our new clients,you’re thinking that your brand doesn’t have a value proposition then you are very definitely not alone. You’ll have likely seen advertising campaigns for comparison sites such as Go Compare, Money Supermarket and Compare the Market. How do they add value or better solve a problem? Simply put, they don’t. They rely on their ad agency to create a memorable campaign concept. And then chuck millions of pounds at their media agency in the hope they capture the national imagination. There’s no effort to establish a competitive advantage over rivals. The problem for most businesses is clear, as they don’t have millions to throw at a TV ad campaign.

How do you create a proposition for your brand?

At Fireworx we specialise in helping brands define their ‘value proposition’ FIRST, before any attempt to communicate with their customers. We focus on disrupting markets by creating ‘value’ for a brand which will complement the creative and digital services we also provide. It’s not easy and it can be challenging, but that’s why clients challenge us. In our experience, if a business’ value proposition accurately conveys a benefit to a customer, then well-planned marketing will work more efficiently.

When Chillblast came to us, they wanted to lose their tag of the best kept secret of the Performance PC industry. Following a brand workshop, where we identified that ‘Quality’ was the key driver in the customer purchase decision, we developed the proposition of the ‘UK’s Most Awarded PC Manufacturer’, which was soon validated by the ASA. The proposition was underpinned by tangible evidence in the form of a 5 Star Trustpilot rating, and an industry leading 5 year warranty.

Similarly, Choose Wisely came to Fireworx to help them stand out in the battle of the multi-million pound comparison site campaigns…as they don’t have a multi-million pound budget! As we often do, we turned to their customers for the answer, and it soon became clear: typical users of the Choose Wisely site felt marginalised when it came to money and were often confused by industry jargon. From here “Money for the Many” was born, and the site’s positive and empowering messaging and imagery was designed to reinforce that Choose Wisely users were taking back control of their finances.

As well as strong commercial success, the proposition development was recognised at the Experian Credit Strategy Lending Awards, by winning theGamechanger – Consumer Choice Award.

Four Top Tips for a stronger proposition

So, before you brief your next marketing project here are our tips to consider and clarify your value proposition:

• Spend time defining your customer and their habits – profiling has never been more important
• Focus on one of four core needs and position yourself around one of them: value, quality, need or aspiration.
• Think about how you articulate your proposition succinctly… It should be the same for a potential new client, to friends and to colleagues.It’s not about being perceived as different, it’s about being better in a more tangible way.

If you’d like to see the power of delivering a digital solution that is backed by a meaningful proposition, then maybe it’s time to #ChallengeFWX. To find out how we do things better and to discover more about the value we can provide contact me on: dan@fwx.co.uk or on 01202 559559.