How To Write Compelling Value Propositions And Develop Successful Products
As a product manager, you deliver value to your users through your products, and yet so often products are created that add no real value to your users’ lives. This can have devastating consequences to your revenue stream, provide opportunities to your competitors and lose you the trust of your users. To avoid this, no matter how small or how expensive your product is, always make sure it is delivering value.
But, is that easier said than done? Surely all of these product managers producing valueless products weren’t trying to do so? Well, one sure-fire way to steer clear of those waters is to make a value proposition the centre of every product development process. Writing a succinct, effective and persuasive sentence that sums up the purpose and benefit of your product will serve as the keystone for the business, keeping you on track to make a product that lasts.
1. Describe the solution
This should almost go without saying, but you’d be surprised how often project managers forget this point.
“Time and time again I’ve seen copy full of jargon and buzzwords that forgets to identify the core solution. Explain your product in the value proposition, because your users won’t do the work for you,” explains Cynthia Ovire, a product manager at Bestaustralianwriters and Bestbritishessays.
It’s important to be succinct, but make sure you get across exactly what your product or service offers and why it’s valuable to the user.
2. Direct it at the user
Often value propositions get hooked on the product itself and forget there’s an audience that they should be talking to. We’ve all seen them: “The new way to build landing pages”, or “The best content distribution service for marketers”. These sorts of lines are so concerned with lavishing praise on the product that they either ignore the user or use overly general terms for them.
Your user is more than “marketers”, it is a specific marketer: the one who’s reading that sentence, in that moment. Take advantage of that fact by using active language, directed at the user authoritatively. “Build new landing pages”, “Distribute content” — focus on the action and then describe the effect, rather than wasting time on superlatives.
3. Highlight its value
Related to the above point, make sure you emphasise the benefit of your product or service in the explanation. This still means avoiding superlatives — who cares if your landing pages are “the best” if you don’t explain what that means?
4. Explain why they should care
So many value propositions fail to answer the most basic question that’s constantly running through your user’s mind: why should I care? Why should I invest any time in your product or service? Will it make an actual difference to the way I work?
If the answer to that last question is yes — and we hope, for your sake, that it is — show them why in the value proposition.
“Don’t overwhelm your users with tens and hundreds of potential benefits and features. No one cares if you have 500 new features if they do nothing for your user,” says Tini Nnedi, a business writer at Revieweal and Topcanadianwriters.
All you need is one good feature to get your users to care about your product. Highlight that in your value proposition.
5. Make sure it transfers to your roadmap
By roadmap I’m referring to the plan your business has for converting your value proposition from a string of marketing buzzwords into a viable product. This, of course, is the most important point, because a value proposition without a legitimate product is nothing.
Now, a roadmap is more than a list of planned features. It should have the user at its core, answering the question of why the customer should care. This is why the value proposition and the roadmap work so well together. It can be tempting to run away with theories and ideas in developing a product plan, but without linking it back to the user value you won’t end up with a product that sells.
Conclusion
The best value propositions anchor your product development process in the real world and lash them to your users. Focus on what your users want, what they can legitimately use, and what you as a team can honestly deliver.
Molly Crockett is a career and marketing blogger with Writemyaustralia.com and Australianreviewer.com. She enjoys researching the market and works with businesses to implement marketing trends and analyze their results. She travels the world as a digital nomad, teaches writing skills at Ukservicesreviews.com.
