The average human attention is rapidly getting shorter on a daily basis – even shorter than that of a goldfish.
People are now more engaged than ever before, and also get distracted easily by the numerous shiny objects on the internet, once prospects lands on your website, you have less than 0.5 seconds to tell them all you offer else, once the bell ring, they’ll move to the next option.
And from research, the most effective means of achieving this is by having a smartly crafted value proposition.
Regardless of what you offer, you have bigger and better competitors.
There’s an e-commerce website out there with more customers, a blog that has more readers, or a company with better brand recognition. Many of these competitors are usually clear market leaders in your industry.
Interestingly, it’s often so tempting to assume they’re there because they were highly favored by the goddess of good luck – obviously, they might have been fortunate, but their sustained growth isn’t all about luck…
…instead, they’ve got an insanely powerful value proposition, and they know how best to use them.
Simply put…Your value proposition is arguably the most critical element of your overall marketing message. It’s the very first thing that determines whether people will give you their attention, or just hit the back button.
According to Quick Sprout, they were able to boost the conversion rate of KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg by over 10% after testing their good value proposition.
Similarly, the screenshot below is an excerpt from a post titled “Brand: The aggregate experience of the value proposition” from the Meclabs Institute: It will help to make this message clearer.
Can you now see the point?
In this blog post, I’m going to reveal to you the top 17 companies with the most interesting customer value proposition out there, and how best to emulate them to stand out from the fierce competition.
But before I proceed, I’ll like us first to understand what value proposition actually means.
What is Customer Value Proposition?
A value proposition is a positioning statement that portrays a visible picture of what benefits your brand offers to prospects. On the other hand, it’s a unique promise of value to be delivered to your customers.
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In a nutshell, a well-crafted value proposition tells your audience:
- Why customers should patronize you instead of your competitors (Outstanding differentiation)
- What benefits customers can expect to get from your offer (Quantifiable value)
- How your product/service will solve problems and improve the lives of your prospects (Relevancy)
This chart from Marketing Sherpa speaks volume:
Furthermore, it introduces you to prospective customers thereby helping you make a solid first impression. That’s why it is critical to have a compelling one.
That being said, now that you’ve understood what value proposition is all about, here are 17 examples that are ridiculously effective.
1. Dollar Shave Club “Look, Feel, And Shave Like a Million Bucks.”
Dollar Shave Club is incredibly smart at their marketing with an excellent value proposition. In the example above, the company did a remarkable job at focusing on the benefits and values they offer to their customers, instead of the features as often done by many brands.
That’s not all; they also smartly integrated their greatest selling point – “price” into the message. Even though they’re not entirely clear on who their target audience is – but for something as common as shaving, it’s not necessary.
2. Lyft “Rides in Minutes”
Their product: In-demand car service
Target audience: People who want to easily get from point A to point B while saving time
Major benefit: Prompt response
Lyfts value proposition is clear and succinct. Their primary focus is in providing local service without delays. Unlike most other brands, the company smartly targets two different personas at once with two discrete value propositions. One speaks to the people who want to get rides while the other to those who want to give them rides.
3. Bitly “Shorten. Share. Measure”
Bitly is a popular brand known for its link shortening and management service. Bitly is all about eliminating clutter and being brief which the company’s value proposition entirely reflected on.
In these simple statements, Bitly clearly summarized its three major services (shorten links, share links, measure the outcome) in a very comprehensible and easy to remember manner.
4. FreshBooks “Small Business Accounting Software That Makes Billing Painless.”
In this value proposition, FreshBooks does an excellent job of telling you exactly what they offer and who it’s meant for, thereby calling out their personas directly.
The boldly written statement “That makes billing painless” not only commands attention but equally highlights a universal marketer pain point of the inability to understand accounting software.
5. Mint “It’s All Coming Together.”
Mint’s recently updated value proposition captures your attention with its aspiring message.
Having a good grip on your money and personal finances is crucial to accomplishing many long-term goals and adequately planning for the future (i.e. buying a car, a house, retiring, etc.).
As Mint clearly stated, “It’s all coming together,” managing your finances will become easier and effortless with the help of Mint.
The vague statement could also be seen as a sign of relief; encouraging people not to worry about how to save their money and everything that involves their finances as it’s all taken care of in one place.
6. Opera “Fast, secure, easy-to-use browser.”
The Opera Mini is arguably the most ostracized browser out there, but its unique value proposition absolutely makes it difficult to argue against it.
It’s plain and straightforward, and if you’re still searching for a Chrome or Firefox alternative, Opera is fast, secure, and easy-to-use. Why not check it out?
7. Square “Start Selling Today.”
People might just not have cash on them sometimes, and from experience, nothing is more frustrating than trying to purchase something and then discovering they don’t accept credit cards. It’s usually annoying to the buyer and sometimes leads to the seller missing out on a sale.
Square’s product solves both of these problems, and its value proposition reflects directly to that. With its product and service, you can start selling more right away. It’s that simple.
Note: (You can get the Square’s reader for free, but for you to use it, the company takes 2.75 percent of every transaction).
8. Evernote “Remember Everything.”
Evernote has one of the most intriguing value propositions out there. I mean, in just two words (Remember Everything), you already know the exact benefit and the value of its product. They equally display it in action with three conditions in its hero video.
Today, with so many things happening around us at the same time, people have a lot to memorize, and it’s incredibly difficult to remember all. Luckily, Evernote is aware of that and offers to help, isn’t that is amazing.
9. Periscope “Explore What The World Is Seeing”
Periscope provides quality live streaming videos to millennials who desire real-time visual content. With them, you have the ability to experience incredible moments without borders.
When you look at their value proposition, the word “explore” is what made it so powerful. It shows how consumers have absolute control over the experience.
10. HubSpot
I won’t be wrong to say that HubSpot knows a lot about inbound marketing. The company wrote the book on “how to optimize your website for inbound marketing” and will hopefully do the same for inbound sales.
It’s killer value proposition (generate leads, close deals & manage your pipeline with the HubSpot growth stack) is boldly written on its latest homepage design.
Once you land on the page, you’ll immediately (in less than 1 second) understand what benefits HubSpot provides its users, this will enable you to quickly decide if their services are for you or not.
11. Skype “Skype keeps the world talking, for free.”
In Skype’s value proposition, it leaves no secret as to what it offers (helps you call, share, and message), and you can do it (on desktop, phone, and tablet,), and it does this for (the entire world.)
The emotional image of a loved one connecting over a video chat on Skype’s homepage also speaks volume as regards their value proposition. They simply left no stone unturned.
12. Stripe “The new standard in online payments.”
Stripe offers its users a collection of tools that empowers online businesses to manage and accept payments from clients. Its target audience is everyone that runs an internet-based business that accepts payments from foreign customers.
Stripe’s value proposition lays emphasis on simplicity, streamlined and straightforward payment platform for Internet marketers and web developers.
13. The Ladders “Move up in your career.”
The Ladders is a career website that focuses on high income ($100,000+) job placement. It’s visibly positioned value proposition, “Move up in your career” is a smart play on both what they stand for (helping you move forward in your career and upping your paycheck) as well as the desire of the prospect to do these things.
It takes an outstanding ability to catch both emotional and functional value in a single short sentence, but The Ladders flawlessly conquered that.
14. Apple MacBook “Light. Years ahead.”
Apple is a great brand and has one of the most significant value propositions out there for every of their products (iPhone, iPad, iPod, MacBook), but its statement for the MacBook is the most impressive and outstanding.
In this smart example, Apple highlights how lightweight its product is (its primary differentiator), while equally emphasizing on how advanced its technology is.
In a nutshell, the value proposition clearly states that Apple is always “Light. Years ahead” (even in marketing.)
15. Weebly “Websites, eCommerce & Marketing in one place.”
With lots of web builders in the market today, Weebly positions itself as the “easiest to use” platform to make a blog, website, or e-commerce store today. Are you in need of a web presence right now and considering Wix, Webs, or Squarespace? Check Weebly first.
Its value proposition tries to convince its prospects to believe there’s no easier or faster way to get started than with them.
16. Awesome Screenshot “The easiest way to communicate with images.”
I’ll admit it; Awesome Screenshot is one of my all-time favorite Chrome extension (especially when I’m writing articles like this with lots of examples).
Now, looking at the website’s homepage, I can gladly confess that the company couldn’t have summarized its value proposition any better in one statement than it did.
With its annotation and capping tools, Awesome Screenshot will help you to effortlessly and efficiently communicate with images. I can attest to that!
17. Invision “Design better. Faster. Together”
Invision is another excellent tool whose primary purpose is streamlining the design process by making it simple for people to share and collaborate on design prototypes and mockups. Invision value is visibly stated on its homepage (Better design, done faster, and together as a team).
Upon seeing this, you don’t need a magician to explain to you what the company offers. Now, that’s the exact definition of a sound value proposition.
How To Craft a Customer Value Proposition That Stands Out
Now that I’ve shown you these powerful examples, below are some tips for writing your very own value proposition that will position your brand as an authority in your industry.
First of all, you will need a value proposition canvas to get started with crafting your value proposition.
I know you’ll be wondering what a value proposition canvas stands for – It’s much related to a business plan canvas: In a nutshell, it’s a simple, visual framework for brainstorming and outlining your value proposition.
You’ll want to answer some critical questions about your product and your customer when filling your value proposition canvas. Here’s an excellent example from a digital brand strategist “Peter J. Thomson.”
Follow the instructions below to write an effective value proposition:
- Explain why people should ignore your competitors and buy from you instead
- Ensure your value proposition is outstanding and unique
- Clearly define the value of your product or service
- Carry out competitive research before you start crafting one
- Instead of writing generic propositions, target specific buyer personas
- Find out the emotional drivers of purchasing of your customers
- Know the hiding needs of your customers
- In the end, A/B test your proposition to ensure it’s good enough
When you’re done filling out your value proposition canvas, it may look like the image below:
The most tedious part of the process is that your value proposition needs to be simple, brief, and easy to understand. Once you achieve this, you’ll have winning customer value proposition.
Conclusion
There you have it all! In this post, you learned the meaning of value proposition, and also saw 17 great value proposition examples that are irresistible. You also learned how to write a good value proposition with a value proposition canvas.
Now, feel free to use these examples as a source of inspiration to create your own value proposition, so you can start kicking your competitors aside!
Hi, Theodore. Bitly’s VP is perfect. All of the companies you shared have excellent VP’s.
Now, to come up with a succinct one for my blog…
p.s. was impressed with your guest post on Janice’s blog (mostlyblogging) so had to visit your blog. ^_^
Welcome to ImViews Sara,
I’m glad you like the post, and thanks for the kind words regarding my guest post. God bless you