As a small business, it’s important to constantly be asking yourself how you can add value for your customers. Sometimes, this may have nothing to do with your digital presence. However, when dealing with digital marketing, it becomes a question of the online value proposition as it relates to your current and future customers.
What motivates a customer to buy from your site? What makes them want to interact with your brand? And, in turn, why would they want to share their experience both offline and on their social media channels? Those are the questions we are focusing on today. We’ll help you define your own online value proposition and how to use it in your digital marketing strategy.
What is the Online Value Proposition?
At its core, your business’s online value proposition should answer a few key questions for your customers. When audience members land on your website or engage with your social media posts, a few immediate thoughts will cross their minds, often without them realizing. They may include: why am I here? How does this help me? What will I do with the information being presented? There will no doubt be a few extra questions that are dependent entirely on the content of your site.
The task at hand is to provide answers to these questions and make it so your customers don’t have to work too hard to find them. You could do this by showing how your products are superior to your competitors’. Maybe this means using strong brand design and clear calls to action to tell customers why they should trust your business and how you’re exactly what they’re looking for.
Either way, creating a strong online value proposition begins with answering the question of how you will add value. From there comes the planning and implementation stages.
The Online Value Proposition and Digital Marketing
A defined value proposition is necessary, but without purpose, it just raises one more question for your customers: why should I care? That’s where digital marketing comes into practice.
The value proposition has to be strategic, which is where research comes in. Just like how you would research the type of messaging that would engage your audience during a marketing campaign, you should research what will get customers’ attention and make them care about your value proposition.
The message has to go in the right place at the right time in order to draw the right audience and should be fully consistent with your brand. For instance, if you have a sale happening in your store on items you know your target audience would value, you probably wouldn’t want to promote this Monday at 8:30 a.m. on Instagram. It’s best to wait until 11 a.m.-1 p.m. so that people might see it when they are checking their phones on their lunch break.
This portion will be entirely dependent on your audience’s habits and how you decide to most effectively send them a message.
The Online Value Proposition in Practice
This can be a rather abstract concept due to the fact that each case and each industry will have different approaches. However, if you still find yourself feeling stuck, here are a few examples of what implementing an online value proposition looks like.
On Your Website
Make sure your information is well laid out in a visually pleasing way. The most pertinent information to visitors should appear at the top of the page and be stated succinctly. You only have a few seconds to show your audience that you’re the best source for what they need, and big blocks of text may send them away. Also, headlines should effectively tell what you have to offer and why it will benefit the reader.
On e-commerce sites, be sure to use images that show customers exactly what they can expect from your products. Have an option to filter products so that they can find what they’re looking for quickly. In your language, be sure to subtly emphasize the ways that your services are better than competitors’. Include clear calls to action and buttons where appropriate.
On Your Social Media
Be willing to share key insights and “behind the scenes” information with your target audience. They want something that is going to be meaningful in their lives, so find a way to deliver this. If you have a new way of doing something, tell your customers and show them how to achieve it in their own lives.
In doing this, create posts that show your business’s value to your audience’s lives, then get them thinking about the products you offer. If they see your worth as a business, they will probably be more likely to seek out your services.
How you add value for your customers is entirely up to what works for your business and target audience. You have to strategically show others why your products matter, and why they will continue to be relevant to their lives. Doing this in an online space will make your message farther-reaching so that you are able to draw more targeted customers.
At Vervology, we know this can be easier said than done. If you need help creating a digital strategy for your online value proposition or want content and design to back it up, we’d be happy to help. We’ll handle the strategy end while you focus on your business.