It’s Time To Redefine The Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

Abstract

SMARTech Convergence Series: Blog 6
Why the UVP is the most powerful weapon your company can use to protect its brand equity and market share.

4 min read | By Justin Perry

What to Expect: 

SECTION 1

Why is it time to redefine the “UVP”?

In theory, the Unique Value Proposition of any company reflects how a particular product or service delivers value.

The UVP typically maps to the end customer in one or more ways:

  • Enhancing the quality of life (B to C companies)
  • Helping companies drive revenue more effectively (B to B companies)
  • Helping companies cut down cost (B to B companies)

While it is not uncommon for the UVP to impact multiple aspects of a company the perceived impact of the UVP to the business is often tied to the decision maker’s view of the business.

Different customer types are likely to respond to different benefits and outcomes.

This means that a single UVP statement is most likely NOT going to be able to appeal to each and every customer within your target market.

SECTION 2

The Most Compelling UVP is NOT Universal

The laws of marketing dictate that the more relevant your offer is, the more likely the customer is to buy. When your UVP resonates with the individual customer more than anything else on the marketplace, they will choose your company’s products or services over and over again.

So, the most powerful Unique Value Proposition for your company, the one that protects it from its direct competitors, will be the statement that most resonates with the specific customers in that specific sub-market.

Following that train of thought…

It would be more effective to tailor your UVP to each sub-market that your company is operating on.

If you were to agree that that makes sense, then it would not be a leap to say that every company needs more than one Unique Value Proposition.

It needs variations of the UVP, tailored to the distinct groups of customers that convert faster, stay with the company longer and have higher lifetime value.

SECTION 3

How to Create a Multifaceted UVP

In the previous step of the SMARTech Journey, we established that business goals typically fall in one of the three main directions:

  • Gain market share
  • Protect market share
  • Lose less market share than last year

Then, we examined how the macro principle can be applied to the micro and how your company can fulfill these business goals through categories of products, product lines, individual products or specific market segments.

If you follow this path to SMARTech Convergence, at this point, you will have a great deal of focus as to where you need to make gains and where you need to protect market share. You are able to get closer to the details surrounding the individual people that you will be selling to you are able to render your UVP in a way that most appeals to the motivations of each target audience.

Take Conduit’s Unique Value Proposition as an example.

At Conduit we have a boilerplate UVP statement that encompasses every way that we help our clients:

"We help companies drive revenue through SMARTech Convergence and we help them drive down the blended cost to acquire a customer. As a byproduct of adopting SMARTech Convergence and through applying its principles, we are also able to help promote cross-functional cooperation within the company across Sales, Marketing and IT that not only dramatically increases scalability but also drives efficiency. Finally, we help position the company’s technology appropriately in order to have automation take over and lower the amount of people that are required to execute a strategy."

However, how does this universal statement apply to the specific people within the company?

Through detailed market research and experience, we have determined that we have four types of target customers:

  • Executives (The CEO and the CFO)
  • Heads of Sales
  • Heads of Marketing
  • Heads of IT

Each of these people have different reasons why they would want to use our services. So, when speaking to each target group, we emphasize different aspects of our value proposition based on who they are and what they care about.

SECTION 4

SMARTech Convergence + The UVP

One of the main tenets of SMARTech Convergence is that every aspect of your strategy and every step of your SMARTech Journey builds upon the previous.

The end goal is to ensure consistency across the various aspects of your customer acquisition + retention strategy, eliminate reasons for failure and then align every element in your sales pipeline for maximum throughput.

Your UVP is a central element in achieving this alignment because it is the most powerful weapon that can be used to increase market share and the last line of defense to stem market share loss in a saturated or contracting marketplace.

What's Next?

UVP + Your Best Customers 

So, who are your best customers and how do you make your Unique Value Proposition resonate with them? The next step on your SMARTech Journey is understanding the different customer segments in your target market and aligning your company’s UVP with their needs.
Continue the Journey