MarketingSherpa Blog

We generally think of only companies or campaigns having value propositions. For nonprofit companies, communicating the value proposition effectively is necessary for survival.

There is a value prop behind every action, including each email sent — why should people read your entire email or click through to a landing page? In the case of nonprofits, it seems this challenge is stronger, with no promise of a product at the end of the cycle.

This value proposition of action for email marketing answers the question behind why customers should take a specific action when they get your email — click.

Once people land on your page, that’s when you give them the reason to take action.

At Web Optimization Summit 2014, Tim Kachuriack, Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer, NextAfter, shared his experiences of working with nonprofits on email and landing page designs.

He explained that he was inspired at a MarketingSherpa conference a few years prior, when his page was selected for live optimization and critiqued in front of the entire MarketingSherpa audience.

Although confident that the page could more effectively communicate his value proposition, he mentioned his reservations when asking to test this page for the first time, saying,

“You guys helped me create this ugly, Frankenstein-looking version of the landing page,” Tim said. “It took much convincing and pleading, and many adult beverages. I convinced my client to actually let us,  in fact, test this.”

It resulted in a 274% increase in revenue for the nonprofit.

Read more…

Marketing in highly competitive environments can be difficult as pressure mounts to stand out amongst fierce competitors in a space that feels like its constantly shrinking.

So, in today’s MarketingSherpa blog post, you will hear three ideas to inspire you from a MarketingExperiments Web clinic – “Discovering Your Value Proposition: 6 ways to stand out in a crowded marketplace.” Our goal is to share a few simple techniques to differentiate your offers in highly competitive environments and avoid “me too” marketing.

But first, let’s clarify what a value proposition is.

According to the MECLABS Value Proposition Development Online Course, a value proposition is defined as the answer to the question – “If I am your ideal prospect, why should I buy from you rather than your competitors?”

So, how would you answer this question about your offer?

Take a few minutes to brainstorm on how you would answer this question.

Now if what you wrote down read like any of these …

• “We empower you with software solutions.”
• “I don’t sell products and services; I sell results — my guarantee.”
• “We help people find their passion and purpose.”
• “We are the leading [insert your service here] provider.”
• “Get found online.”
• “This site has what the person is looking to find.”

Then, it’s likely your campaigns are underperforming. Here are some techniques you can use to plug some of the leaks in your sales funnel.

Technique #1: Craft offers that focus on your “only factor”

Your value proposition must include one aspect that differentiates you from your competitors. This one singularity is your “only factor.” If your value proposition doesn’t do this, you’re already at a disadvantage.

The goal here is to craft offers with a powerful only factor that will ideally have the right amount of appeal and exclusivity. Offers that are short on either of these elements can result in the following:

• Offers with appeal but not much exclusivity lose appeal in a crowded marketplace with lots of competitors, and choices, for your ideal customer.

• Offers that are exclusive but lack appeal quickly lose their leverage because not enough of those ideal customers will likely be motivated to act on your offer.

Technique #2: Support value propositions with clear evidentials

Evidentials are supporting claims in your offer that can be quantified and verified. To illustrate this point, let’s revisit the hypothetical car dealership owned by our Director of Editorial Content, Daniel Burstein.

Suppose Daniel decides to make a commercial for his dealership and in the ad he says:

“Please visit us at Burstein Auto; we have Florida’s best selection of cars for you to choose from!”

That statement is not very quantifiable because almost anyone can make the claim that they have the “best” of something.

Now if he were to instead say something like this …

“Please visit us at Burstein Auto; our dealership spans across five acres of land with over 1,500 new cars for you to choose from.”

The claims made in the second statement are quantified and have greater credibility because they can be verified. An overall goal for evidentials is to use them as bulleted points of information that support your claims strategically.

Here are a few key questions to ask yourself or your team about your evidentials:

• Is our claim quantifiable?
• Can our claim be verified?

Read more…