Glossary
Value proposition
A value proposition is a short statement of the specific outcome a customer gets from your product, for whom, and why it beats the alternatives. It answers the buyer's question: why should I pick this over doing nothing or a competitor?
What Is Value Proposition?
In short A value proposition names three things: the customer you serve, the problem or goal they have, and the result your product delivers.
Good ones are specific enough to be wrong. "Cut month-end close from 10 days to 3 for mid-market finance teams" says more than "streamline your finance operations".
Every later piece of go-to-market work borrows from it: the homepage headline, the sales deck, the first line of a cold email, the agenda of a discovery call. When the value proposition is vague, each of those drifts, and buyers can't tell you apart from the next vendor.
Value Proposition Example
Example: a payroll software company sells to US restaurant groups with 5 to 50 locations. Its generic pitch is "modern payroll". Its value proposition for this segment is "Run payroll for every location in one place and cut tip-reporting errors, so each manager spends about 4 fewer hours a week on admin." The customer, the problem and the result fit in one sentence.
Value Proposition in Practice
Outbound teams usually write one value proposition per segment instead of one for the whole company. A logistics firm and a software company may buy the same product for different reasons, so the cold email to each leads with the outcome that segment cares about and backs it with a proof point, such as a result from a similar customer.
FAQ
What makes a good value proposition?
It names who it's for, the problem it solves and a concrete result, in words the buyer would use. If a competitor could paste it onto their homepage unchanged, it's too generic.
What is the difference between a value proposition and a USP?
The value proposition explains the full value a customer gets. The unique selling proposition is the one point of difference competitors can't claim. Salesforce draws the line this way: a USP is what makes your product unique in the marketplace, a customer value proposition is its value to the customer.
How do you write a value proposition?
Start from your best customers. Write down the problem they hired you for, the result they got and why they chose you over alternatives, then compress it into one or two sentences per segment and test it in real outreach.
How long should a value proposition be?
One headline-length sentence, sometimes with a supporting line. HBS Online describes it as a statement of a few sentences at most that sits inside a larger marketing plan.
Do This in Ken
Do This in Ken
Write each value proposition into its own Campaigns sequence for one segment, then compare the replies each one gets in Inbox.
- Module
- Campaigns
- Open in Ken
- /features
The new Ken opens to the waiting list in batches.
Related
Sources
| Source | Checked |
|---|---|
| Harvard Business School Online: How to Create an Effective Value Proposition | |
| Salesforce: Customer Value Proposition |
Changelog
- Page published.