Joseph Wilson @joeatmars jwilson@marsdd.com ��

Agenda

What is a value proposition?

Examples Mission Statement Elevator Pitch Tag line Positioning Statement Metaphors

How to (not) articulate value:

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A value proposition is a statement of the unique benefits delivered by your offering to the target customer

A value proposition is a hypothesis that your offering will bring certain values to a target customer. * * Like any hypothesis, it needs to be rigorously tested in the lab (read: with customers) before money is put into scaling.

Value Proposition is Not:

A tag-line A mission statement An elevator pitch A positioning statement A positioning metaphor

Value Proposition

Tag-line

Mission

statement

Elevator Pitch

Positioning

statement

Metaphor

Core Thesis

Marketing

Marketing

Marketing

Marketing

Marketing

Value Proposition

Tag-line

Mission

statement

Elevator Pitch

Positioning

statement

Metaphor

The value proposition statement should consist of these components: 1. What your product/service is

2. The target customer

3. The value you provide them

Emergent property: why your product is unique

Examples:

Good: “Winners is a department store that offers fashion conscious consumers the latest brand names for up to 60 per cent off.” (Winners)

Bad: “Winners is an off-price department store owned by TJX that employs international sourcing and buying power.”

What is it?

For whom?

Values?

Examples:

Good: “Winners is a department store that offers fashion conscious consumers the latest brand names for up to 60 per cent off.” (Winners)

Bad: “Winners is an off-price department store owned by TJX that employs international sourcing and buying power.”

What is it?

For whom?

Values?

Examples:

Good: “A1 Industries has developed an economical and easy-to-use chemical additive that allows paint manufacturing companies to reduce the environmental impact of their products

Bad: “A1 Industries has discovered a chemical isomer additive that allows for a reduction of VOC emissions.”

What is it?

For whom?

Values?

Examples:

Good: “A1 Industries has developed an economical and easy-to-use chemical additive that allows paint manufacturing companies to reduce the environmental impact of their products

Bad: “A1 Industries has discovered a chemical isomer additive that allows for a reduction of VOC emissions.”

What is it?

For whom?

Values?

Examples:

Good: “Google is the world’s largest search engine that allows internet users to find relevant information quickly and easily.”

Bad: “Google uses a patented page-ranking algorithm to make money through ad placement.”

What is it?

For whom?

Values?

Examples:

Good: “Google is the world’s largest search engine that allows internet users to find relevant information quickly and easily.”

Bad: “Google uses a patented page-ranking algorithm to make money through ad placement.”

What is it?

For whom?

Values?

Are Internet Users really Google’s customers?

Examples:

Good: “Google is the world’s largest search engine that automatically provides advertisers with potential customers tailored to the ad content, increasing click-through rates and conversion rates.”

Bad: “Google uses a patented page-ranking algorithm to make money through ad placement.”

What is it?

For whom?

Values?

Saving/making money

Saving time

Lower risk

Enabling function

Convenience

Quality

Customizable

Usability

Social Inclusion

Health

Aesthetics

Status

Newness

Environmental

Self-Actualization

Ethical

Selling to Business

Selling to Customer

Value Prop Template: For _____target audience________, __company name_______ has created __product name___ that results in ___value 1_________, __value 2____, ____value 3__.

Value Proposition

Tag-line

Mission

statement

Elevator Pitch

Positioning

statement

Metaphor

Elevator pitch: A 60 second quick pitch that describes the business.

Hook Problem Solution (value prop-ish) Unique Features Call to action

The Hook: “I buy dead magazines…” “We make conferences not boring….” “We sell 15 minute vacations…”

“What do you mean?”

The Problem: “Paper based magazines are failing…”

“Conferences are usually based on one-way lectures….”

“People’s commute to work is stressful…”

The solution:

“We buy up print magazines that are failing and reinvent

them on the web as digital publications. For traditional small magazine publishers my company Solid Media provides an online template called digipub which repurposes their print material for online consumption at lower cost and opens up their content to a new crop of advertisers.

The solution:

“We buy up print magazines that are failing and reinvent

them on the web as digital publications. For traditional small magazine publishers my company Solid Media provides an online template called digipub which repurposes their print material for online consumption at lower cost and opens up their content to a new crop of advertisers.

What is it?

For whom?

Values?

The solution: “We buy up print magazines that are failing and reinvent

them on the web as digital publications. For traditional small magazine publishers my company XYZ Media provides a platform called digipub which repurposes their print material for online consumption at lower cost and opens up their content to a new crop of advertisers.

“Hmmm, good idea”

Unique features: “We add the e-magazines metadata into our recommendation

engine, kind of like Amazon, which brings in new readers.”

Call-to-action: “We’re signing up beta customers now to play around with the

platform and tell us what they think. Check it out” [hands out business card]

Value Proposition

Tag-line

Mission

statement

Elevator Pitch

Positioning

statement

Metaphor

Positioning statement: a value proposition plus a competitive anchor. For traditional small magazine publishers my

company Solid Media provides a template called digipub which repurposes their print material for online consumption at lower cost and opens up their content to a new crop of advertisers. Unlike Press Publisher 4.0, digipub adds metadata to your content, connecting you with new readers and new advertisers.

Positioning statement: a value proposition plus a competitive anchor. For traditional small magazine publishers my

company Solid Media provides a template called digipub which repurposes their print material for online consumption at lower cost and opens up their content to a new crop of advertisers. Unlike Wordpress, digipub is for magazine publishers alone to repurpose their content and discover new readers online.

Value Proposition

Tag-line

Mission

statement

Elevator Pitch

Positioning

statement

Metaphor

Metaphor: a way to anchor your brand to something people already understand “digipub is like Shopify for magazines.” “digipub is to the magazine industry what Kobo

is for books.” “digipub is like Wordpress for Magazines. “digipub combines the metadata from Amazon

with the templates in Wordpress specifically for magazine publishers.”

Value Proposition

Tag-line

Mission

statement

Elevator Pitch

Positioning

statement

Metaphor

Tagline: a marketing line to accompany your brand name “digipub: Reimagine Your Magazine.” “digipub: Print is Dead. Long Live Print.” “digipub: Follow Your Readers Online.” “digipub: Bits are Cheaper Than Pages.” “digipub: Where Magazines Live Online.”

2

3

4

5

1

Value Proposition

Tag-line

Mission

statement

Elevator Pitch

Positioning

statement

Metaphor

Mission statement: a statement of the purpose of your business. “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s

information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

“Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

“Solid Media’s mission is to connect curious readers to the very best written content on the web.”

The sound-bite cheat sheet

Magazine industry

End readers Media

Value Prop “For magazine publishers…”

“For magazine readers…”

“For magazine readers…”

Elevator Pitch

“I buy dead magazines…”

“Did you used to read a magazine that went out of print?...”

“Just last week we saw in the news…”

Positioning “Unlike Print Publisher…”

“Unlike print magazines”

“Unlike print magazines”

Metaphors “…like Print Shopify”

“like Wordpress…” “like Wordpress…”

Stats “ROI in 4 months” “3,500 magazines online waiting to be discovered…”

“40% print media out of business”

Joseph Wilson @joeatmars jwilson@marsdd.com ��