7 Steps To Create A Value Proposition For Your Startup

Starting your own business is a commendable and bold step. However, your consumers’ needs should be your main priority for your business to succeed. Customers are the lifeline of any business, and without their support, your business may close down in no time.

In this sense, you should consider creating a workable value proposition for your start-up business. A value proposition refers to the promise of satisfaction you give customers if they buy your products. In other words, you assure them that they’ll find your goods valuable. However, note that it’s not just a one-sentence promise. It must be detailed enough, considering the different customer personas for your business. With that in mind, here are seven steps to creating a value proposition for your start-up business:

Segment Your Customers

First, you must identify your target customers. You’d want to categorize the customers into various demographic and psychographic classes rather than generalizing them. Here are some factors you can look into to help you with the categorization:

Age

Tastes and preferences vary widely among different age groups. Thus, you must be clear regarding the age bracket your products are best suited for, whether children, teens, youths, middle-aged, or the elderly. This helps a lot when designing and marketing the products.

Suppose you deal with sneakers for customers of all ages. Your marketing messages to potential teen customers should differ from those you send to older customers. Likewise, you ought to design the teen sneakers to appeal to that particular age group, perhaps with flashy colors and sleeker shapes. On the contrary, the sneakers for the old can be neutral and less eye-catching.

Gender

Females have different likings from males. Thus, it’s critical to know which gender you intend to sell your products to. Take trousers, for example. While men generally go for loosely fitting ones, ladies usually prefer the body-hugging ones. So, you can’t assume a particular clothing item works for both genders.

The sex issue also spills into packaging and marketing. For ladies, you must work extra hard to connect with them emotionally because that influences them to purchase your products. That implies you should put much thought into how you package the clothes and advertise them. You can’t say that in men, who mostly shop with lesser emotions.

Location

People from different neighborhoods also have differing desires. For instance, city dwellers lead a much different lifestyle from those in rural neighborhoods. Therefore, you’d expect these two customer groups to use varied products from each other.

The differing ways of life may also mean that, for any particular product, you may have to design it differently to cater to both groups. Cultures also differ between different neighborhoods of the same class. For example, New Yorkers have specific consumption traits that don’t match the needs of those from Houston, although both are cities.

Income Status

A low-income earner may have different interests from middle or high-income earners. Typically, those who earn less money tend to spend only on necessities, while avoiding luxuries as much as possible. So, as you draft your value proposition, it’s crucial to specify the income level of your target customers.

In addition to these, you may want to look into other demographic factors like education, marital status, home ownership, employment, and race. Psychographics include personality traits, lifestyle, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and values.

Define The Customers’ Pain Points

The next step in creating your value proposition is to know the typical problems your customers face. Knowing these pain points helps you design products that help solve customers’ problems. For instance, if plus-size ladies are having difficulties finding classy summer clothes that fit them, that’s a pain point you can capitalize on. To help them, you can stock enough plus-size summer wear in your clothes shop. Here are other typical pain points you’d want to consider:

Affordability: Times are hard, forcing many people to be wary of overspending. Thus, it’s critical to sell products within your target customers’ expected price ranges. If your competitors are charging exorbitantly, you could lower your prices slightly and focus on affordability in your marketing messages.
Essentiality: Low-income earners and some middle-income ones may only be interested in goods they need for their day-to-day survival. Meanwhile, high-income earners may be more interested in luxurious goods. Knowing what your customers consider essential will help you determine appropriate products for them.

Other common customer pain points include:

Delayed response from the customer service team
Sales representatives with inadequate knowledge of the product they’re selling
Unnecessary lengthy processes when buying products
High cost of repeat purchases
Poor quality of products and services
Rude sales representatives

Knowing these will help you differentiate your products to satisfy your customers rather than pain them just like the rest.

Identify How To Differentiate Your Product From Others

Healthy competition is necessary as it drives growth and enhances production efficiency. With every business in a race to satisfy customers, the quality of products and customer service increases as time goes by. As you launch your start-up business, you must be aware that it’s not the only business of its kind in your area of operation. If you do exactly what other similar businesses are doing, the existing customer base may not find any reason to buy from you. Therefore, research what competitors are doing and see how you can tweak your products and services so they won’t be the same as others.

The following are tips for product differentiation you could try out:

Use marketing messages that focus on your product’s unique features.
Use customer relationship management (CRM) software if your competitors aren’t using it.
Use the latest technology in your specific industry if your rivals haven’t adopted them yet.
Focus on the features that make your products stand out among the competitors so that you don’t compete solely on price.
Highlight the specific problems your products address.
Make it easier for customers to use your products.
Use proprietary technology in manufacturing your goods.
Don’t make empty promises.
Let your products be easier to order and deliver.
Interact with your customers more to demonstrate competence, reliability, courtesy, responsiveness, and credibility.
Offer better discounts than what your competitors give.

State How Your Goods Benefit Consumers

It’s not enough to only mention your products’ features. Your customers are more concerned about how you can help them solve their problems. That’s why it’s critical to associate every product feature with a benefit. If you’re selling doors, don’t only mention that they’re made from steel. Say that steel is strong enough to prevent burglars from breaking into their homes.

Aim to have a single value that resonates with your customers’ main problems. In this way, they’ll develop an interest in the products you’re selling. Likewise, carry out in-depth research to know all the possible things consumers stand to gain from your goods.

Relate Your Company’s Mission To Your Intent

A mission statement primarily directs a business in the right direction. It specifies the scope of operation, target audience, company values, and the kinds of products of the business.

A good practice when writing mission statements is to make the customers a vital part of it. Make your promise of value known clearly. With this, they’ll view your business as customer-centric, which goes a long way to creating lasting relationships with them.

Don’t simply copy what your competitors have. Devote your time to crafting your company’s missions to produce a statement that truly represents your chief reason for existence. Ultimately, you’ll have an outstanding value proposition that separates you from the rest of the pack.

Research On The Right Language Usage

How you speak to customers matters a lot. It usually determines whether or not they’ll purchase your goods and services. For example, using a hyped-up teenage-like language on clients over 50 years may be a huge turn-off. They may end up offended and subsequently shun your products.

Therefore, make it a point to fine-tune your language to appeal to your target customers. You can look into social media platforms and see how consumers talk about the goods you want to launch. You can pick some common phrases they use and include them in your marketing messages.

Create Your Value Proposition

This is the final step in creating your start-up value proposition. Here are the sections you should include:

Headline: Here, you can state the main benefit of your products. Ensure it’s clear and concise. It can be a single creatively written sentence.
Subheading: This goes into a little more detail describing what your goods are all about and who stands a chance of gaining the most from them.
Features: Have a bullet list of all the essential product features and associate each with a benefit.
Images: You can use striking photos of your goods to help capture your customers’ attention.

Conclusion

Drafting a sound value proposition is critical for your start-up business. It helps your customers understand your products and how they’ll benefit from purchasing them. Remember, it’s more than a mere description of features and benefits. It’s a promise which you must fulfill. Otherwise, the customers will label you untrustworthy. Thus, carry out extensive research and craft an impactful value proposition. By doing this, you portray a professional image of your brand to your consumers to make you stand out among the rest of your competitors.