HIGH LEVEL MESSAGING Samples and Workbook

HIGH LEVEL MESSAGING

Samples and Workbook

PERCEIVED

BENEFIT

PERCEIVED

Value Proposition

A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered and a belief from the customer that value will be experienced. A value proposition can apply to an en-tire organization, or parts thereof, or customer accounts, or products or services.”

Having a value proposition, also called a Unique Selling Proposition, is key for your business and communications strategies and developing your statement can be an exhaustive and involved process depending on the nature of your organization and its products. But no matter who you are, or what stage your business is at, going through some simple exercises can help you begin to get a handle on how you want to position yourself with your clients.

I have found that one of the hardest parts of branding projects, from brochures to websites, is helping the client to come up with copy. The other issue that arises is the hierarchy of that copy. A brochure is much like the web in the sense that you need to convey a lot of information through titles, subtitles and bullets etc.

I was looking around for high level messaging templates to use and came across Tor Grønsund’s blog called The Methodologist and an article called “7 Proven Templates for Writing Value Propo-sitions That Work”. In this article he summarizes models created by various different people and provides some of the examples I have outlined below.

I have found these templates to be very helpful to my clients who try to develop marketing copy and so I am going to share them with you. I recommend revisiting these exercises at regular

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Value Proposition Templates

1) Geoff Moore’s Value Positioning Statement

Who ____________ (statement of the need or opportunity) Our (product/service name) is ____________ (product category) That (statement of benefit) ____________ .

Sample:

For non-technical marketers

Who struggle to find return on investment in social media Our product is a web-based analytics software

That translates engagement metrics into actionable revenue metrics.

Geoffrey Moore is a Silicon Valley based high technology consultant, venture partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures and author.

2) Steve Blank’s XYZ

We help non-technical marketers discover return on investment in social media by turning en-gagement metrics into revenue metrics.

Steve Blank is a Silicon Valley serial-entrepreneur and academician who is based in Pescadero, Califor-nia. Blank is recognized for developing the Customer Development methodology, which launched the Lean Startup movement.

3) Vlaskovits & Cooper’s CPS

Customer: ____________ (who your customer is).

Problem: ____________(what problem you’re solving for the customer). Solution: ____________ (what is your solution for the problem).

Sample:

Customer: I believe my best customers are small and medium-sized business (SMB) markets. Problem: Who cannot easily measure campaign ROI because existing solutions are too expensive, complicated to deploy, display a dizzying array of non-actionable charts.

Solution: Low cost, easy to deploy analytics system designed for non-technical marketers who need actionable metrics.

Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits are authors of the Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development.

4) Dave McClure’s Elevator Ride

• KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid = no expert jargon) Sample:

“Mint.com is the free, easy way to manage your money online.”

Dave McClure is an entrepreneur and prominent angel investor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who founded and runs the business incubator 500 Startups. He is often described as one of the super angel inves-tors.

Features / Benefits

Remember: “Features Tell and Benefits Sell.”

• A feature is WHAT your product, service or community has or does.

• The benefit is WHY the feature is important to the person you are communicating with. • A prospect is usually most interested in benefits and a seller is usually most interested in

his product’s features. Talk to your prospect and turn them into a client - talk BENEFITS.

FEATURE BENEFIT TRANSLATION

Operates on common household electricity Save money with no batteries to replace or buy Within a day’s drive of 60% of the US population Lower delivery costs and create higher profit margins In-dash GPS Never ask for directions again

All wheel drive You are less likely to get stuck in the snow Gets more miles per gallon Save money on gas

Waterproof boots Your feet stay dry and warm Side impact air bags You and your family stay safe

Decible range on speakers You can enjoy music hall qualiy sound

Having 3-4 clear feature / benefit statements for

your product or service will help you in all of your

Andrea Butterworth - Owner CalliaMedia

Clean design backed by years of strategic thinking on communications and marketing.

Andrea has spent the last 10 years as a web publisher and online marketer for large organizations such as Bravenet.com, Beanstream Internet Commerce and more recently Resource Clips – Essential Resource News.

In all of her past positions she has consistently in-creased metrics relating to lead generation, sales, client boarding and retention, newsletter signups, member-ships, website traffic, search engine results placements and more. She has developed and implemented mar-keting plans, reworked brands, increased brand reach, refined product strategies and discovered new niche markets and strategic partnerships. Andrea’s visual and analytical backgrounds give her a great balance be-tween knowing how to relay messages creatively and supporting bottom line business considerations.

Learn more at:

www.calliamedia.com [email protected]

250.213.2543

I have had the pleasure of working with Andrea Butterworth for over two years and am happy to recommend CalliaMedia’s services. Andrea has an enviable set of skills perfectly suited for today’s marketing world. She is both an accomplished, skilled graphic designer and a tech-savvy online specialist.

Robert Bick - CEO, Prima Fluorspar Inc

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