Keep Your Value Proposition Relevant
Posted by David Bennett Fri, 09 Jun 2006 17:53:00 GMT
Following are some ideas about keeping your value propositions relevant:
- Know your customers. You must know your customers better than your competition and find out what’s really important to people. Discover and leverage their real and emotional needs. Understand that the environment is dynamic and that needs change rapidly. Tool up to track those changes.
- Fit the value proposition(s). Based on customer knowledge, create clear, concise, and relevant value statements fitted directly to specific needs. Positioning and communication are the drivers here.
- Monitor the marketplace. Look for opportunities for new value propositions via early warning techniques and continuous scanning of the marketplace. This will also tell you when existing value propositions are losing impact and wearing out.
- Build products and services which address evolving needs. Address new consumer problems with new value propositions either in the form of new products or services or new benefits for existing products.
- Review pricing. Be sure the commission you ask for is in balance with the value being offered. If the gap between perceived value and commission widens too far, sales will falter. A permanently reduced pricing level in a value-added category signals customers are just buying “value,” not “value-added.”
Whenever you’re trying to market a product, even if the “product” is you, be clear on a few things: who you’re targeting, what they want, and the value you provide that fits those wants. Then, craft a clear “value prop” that hits the target, and keep making changes to keep pace with your changing audience.
back to top