Let’s get right into it.
You’re reading this because you know clear value propositions matter.
You need these six elements to articulate a selling point of your product.
Let’s walk through each one to understand what they are and what they can look like for your product.
You can watch me walk through these in the video below too:
Who is the person that would get the most benefit from using your product?
With a specific persona, you can better understand the needs, motivations, and behaviors of your target audience. This helps you design a value prop tailored to their specific needs.
Alternatives are not just competitors on the market. Other alternatives could be workflows they already use internally with tools such as spreadsheets or google docs.
What’s wrong with the way things are today for this specific persona related to your product’s solution and how would they talk about it?
What is this specific person able to achieve when they use your product? Don’t confuse these with features or benefits (more on those below).
How do you make the capability possible? What are the functions inside your product that they clearly understand will be helpful to them?
What kind of impact will they see because of your product’s capability? What can improve in their world that helps them reach a goal? What risks or annoyances can they decrease in their line of work?
Below, I created a potential value prop of Slack to show how these elements work together.
A marketing manager
who’s using…
Group chats and email threads to communicate with their team
and encounters…
Some team members have androids or PCs and can’t text via iMessage and long email threads are a nightmare
solved by…
Being able to communicate with your team in one app regardless of device
powered by…
Cross-platform chat
which drives…
So you can collaborate faster and more clearly.
Startup products usually have several value props. Most homepages highlight three under the hero image.
Now that you have these elements documented, you can use them in different aspects of your marketing. A great place to start is the homepage of your website.
I walk through a simple homepage layout for early-stage startups here.
See what 50 other product marketers are saying on my LinkedIn post about this topic.
Do you disagree? Would love to know why.
Have a great product but struggle to clearly explain it on your homepage?
Robert Kaminski and I help early-stage startups with this exact problem.
Let us help you get a clear and compelling homepage message without burning your runway.
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