{"id":60715,"date":"2015-02-12T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T04:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=60715"},"modified":"2015-02-12T08:02:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T04:02:36","slug":"the-value-proposition-show-dont-tell","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/magazine\/the-value-proposition-show-dont-tell","title":{"rendered":"The Value Proposition: Show, Don&#8217;t Tell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 11px 33px; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7438\/16317116038_395dc50d84_b.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"322\" height=\"217\" \/>Knowing your product intimately can often lead you to get caught up in the technical complexity of what you&rsquo;re selling.<\/p>\n<p><!-- pagebreak --><\/p>\n<p>For example, your product may be the best chemical isomer on the market, but if your customer doesn&rsquo;t have the background knowledge they need to be able to understand the jargon in your value proposition, you&rsquo;ll likely have trouble selling your product.<\/p>\n<p>What is a value proposition? It is a statement of the unique benefits your product will deliver to your target audience. The value proposition is critical to marketing success when starting a business.<\/p>\n<p>During a lecture at Entrepreneurship 101, Joe Wilson, education advisor at MaRS, explained why every business needs a strong value proposition.<\/p>\n<p>Joe examined the three questions a value proposition should answer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is your product or service?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Who is your target customer?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>What value does your product provide?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He used discount store Winners to give an example of a good value proposition:<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Winners is a department store that offers fashion-conscious consumers the latest brand names for up to 60% off.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is your product or service? Department store.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Who is your target customer? Fashion-conscious consumers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>What value does your product provide? Latest brand names and up to a 60% discount.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In this example, the value proposition is clear, focused and identifies everything that sets Winners apart from other, similar stores.<\/p>\n<p>When crafting your value proposition, Joe says, you should target a niche market. Your product might benefit everyone, but when your focus is too big you dilute the value proposition.<\/p>\n<p>The final takeaway from Joe&rsquo;s lecture was the importance of the value proposition in the development of other marketing tools. With a strong statement acting as the core and call to action, you can easily create your elevator pitch, tagline and mission statement.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/110598627?color=ff9933&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Check out the video from Joe&rsquo;s lecture for more insights and examples.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>This content first appeared <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marsdd.com\/news-and-insights\/\" target=\"_blank\">on MaRS<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><br \/><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Knowing your product intimately can often lead you to get caught up in the technical complexity of what you&rsquo;re selling. For example, your product may be the best chemical isomer on the market, but if your customer doesn&rsquo;t have the background knowledge they need to be able to understand the jargon in your value proposition, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69734,"featured_media":60717,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"magazine-region":[],"magazine-series":[],"magazine-topic":[],"class_list":["post-60715","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/60715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/69734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/60715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/60717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60715"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-region?post=60715"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-series?post=60715"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brainstation.io\/wp\/api\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=60715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}