Value Propositions Decoded
When we think of ‘value propositions’, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by unique definitions and meanings that the marketing ecosystem has produced.
So, for the sake of clarity, let’s simplify. A value proposition is, in its most basic terms, what you as a business have to offer your audience.
Or to put it another way, when a consumer decides to engage with your brand, everything they receive is part of the value proposition.
Why is this important? Well, your typical small business owner tends to think of the user experience (UX) in pretty narrow terms.
The UX is usually seen as the shopper’s experience and any discussion regarding UX is limited to a customer’s experience on the site.
This leads small business owners to ask questions like:
- Is the site loading quickly?
- What’s the site like on mobile?
- Is the site easy to navigate?
Make no mistake, these are important questions to ask. Friction in the sales funnel kills conversions and addressing these potential issues means reducing some of the more obvious friction for your customers.
And in today’s world, you can’t afford to ignore these surface-level UX issues.
For starters, Google has essentially made it mandatory. Not only do mobile-friendly sites rank higher than sites that don’t, but Google has already started operating using a mobile rank system.
Meaning that whether people are searching on a desktop or mobile device, your rank is going to be whatever your mobile rank is.
We all know that if Google doesn’t know who you are, no one does. And with these changes in place, every day you don’t optimize for mobile audiences is another day you get further away from that page 1 rank.
Keep in mind that roughly 50% of traffic is mobile these days anyway. Whether you realize it or not, there’s a good chance you’re alienating a massive portion of your audience by neglecting mobile.
Take the time to optimize your site and ensure that it passes the mobile-friendly test — you’ll be glad you did.
And yes, your site needs to load quickly. Consumers want the best solutions, but they’re not willing to wait. Every second that someone has to wait for your site to load is another second they question what they’re doing there.
A site with slow load times screams poor craftsmanship and attention to detail (typically not the messages you want to be sending customers). But more importantly, it lets consumers know that you don’t value their time.
And if you’re not valuing their time, why should they value your services?
Of course, we can’t forget about site navigation.
Less is always more in these scenarios, and having a site’s that easy to navigate beats having a fully comprehensive one.
Ideally, you’d want both. But if it’s your first time managing a site, prioritize ease of navigation above all.
Now, these are just the ‘bare minimum’ of UX. But at the end of the day, it’s important to keep in mind that ‘friction’ isn’t just a sales funnel issue.
Friction exists in the marketing funnel, particularly if you’re trying to move your audience between the two funnels.
Having a top-notch UX is about so much more than just having a website that loads quickly. The consumer experience, top to bottom, needs to work like a well-oiled machine.
In other words, are you able to get people from ‘not interested’ to ‘yes’ efficiently and consistently?
Listen, we get it.
The idea of breaking down your marketing efforts and removing any and all friction from your campaigns is a pretty tall order, even if you’re a seasoned marketing pro.
That’s why we’re going to start small and focus on a single, vital component to your marketing efforts — your content marketing.
Now, some of you may be wondering “how on earth can I identify the friction in my content marketing?”
Well, we can start by determining how you’re creating, promoting, and using your content to offer value to consumers.
Data-Driven Content Marketing
When the topic of content marketing comes up in digital marketing circles, you can usually find one of two schools of thought.
On one hand, we have the creative ideology.
As far as these people are concerned, what the content says is all that matters. The narrative, the lessons, the expression. These are the only things worth worrying about, and everything else might as well be icing on the cake.
Then we have metrics ideology, typically highlighted by a fixation with keywords and SEO. The people in this camp tend to believe that it’s impossible to predict what’s going to perform well, so you might as well create dozens of articles and hope something sticks.
So, who’s right?
Well…neither of them, actually.
The reality of content marketing is that you need to have a healthy appreciation for both the creative and analytic aspects of digital marketing.
Let’s get one thing clear: you can’t create top-notch creative content without first understanding what your audience wants.
But you also can’t expect that creative content to be seen by anyone unless it’s supported by a strong analytic infrastructure.
In other words, if you want to maximize your results, you’re going to need the best of both worlds.
Instead of solely relying on their old buyer personas, they create entirely new buyer personas based off recent consumer data.
They even go a step further and start incorporating new, relevant information from social media.
Can you guess which business ended up dominating their niche?
Clearly, business B has the upper hand here. And it’s not just because they had more information.
Their dedication to accurate, up-to-date data is what gives them an advantage.
Speaking of dedication, that’s another critical component to success in the world of data-driven marketing.
If you’re making a plan, you’ll need to stick to it. There’s nothing more dangerous than a half-baked marketing strategy that’s abandoned halfway through.
Your marketing campaign needs to go on long enough for you and your team to look over the numbers and determine whether or not it was actually successful.
Or to put it bluntly: you can’t expect to go from page 5 to page 1 on Google overnight.
This process takes time, and while you should constantly be tracking your results, you shouldn’t let a bumpy start throw your entire plan off.
Plus, the real danger lies in you thinking that a particular plan doesn’t work when, in reality, it just didn’t work as quickly as you would’ve liked.
At this point, you might be a bit concerned when you hear all this talk about tracking and data. If you’ve never run a data-driven marketing campaign, the idea alone can feel a bit intimidating.
But don’t worry, we’ve got just the thing for you.
If you’re serious about data, you’ll need to incorporate automation into your strategy.
This isn’t a request, by the way. There’s just too much data for you to individually track on your own.
The idea is to create a complete consumer profile. You want to understand how your consumers think, shop, and behave. And that’s going to be especially tricky if you try to do it all yourself.
There are some fantastic free marketing automation tools, like Hubspot, that let you spend less time organizing raw data and more time figuring out how to create targeted, high-quality marketing content.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking that an automated tool is a replacement for expertise. All the information in the world won’t do you much good unless you have someone on your team who can turn interest into sales.
Surround yourself with multi-talented team members. You want people who can see the marketing in sales and vice versa.
As far as data-driven marketing goes, a common issue that small business owners run into is fixating on their own business.
It’s great to audit your operations and determine where you could improve, but looking internally will only get you so far.
The best small business owners understand the importance of getting inspiration from the outside world. Or, more specifically, their competition.
If you’re operating a blog, take a look at your competitor’s content. Which of their pieces have performed the best? What angles or perspectives did they miss? How can you improve on the ideas they presented?
These are the questions that you should be asking yourself if you want to ensure that you’re creating content your audience wants to see.
And above all else, keep in mind that this is a cyclical process. Once you’ve wrapped up one data-driven marketing campaign, you’ll want to do your homework.
Determine how effective everything was. Paint honest, transparent pictures here: this is where it pays to be hard on yourself.
Once you’ve found the areas where your marketing strategy was lacking, it’s time to optimize your strategy.
Tweaking your future campaign strategies using the results of the previous campaign is the key to consistent, sustainable growth.
When something works, it gets amplified. When it doesn’t, it gets tweaked. Either way, your marketing efforts are becoming more targeted, more accurate and most importantly, more effective.
Conclusion
Here’s what you need to keep in mind: the world of data-driven marketing is constantly changing.
What mattered yesterday is irrelevant today and you’re constantly at the mercy of the latest metrics results.
But there are certain key components that can help you build a strong foundation for your marketing strategy.
First, understanding the concept of value propositions and how your ability to clearly communicate with audiences is vital to your marketing success.
You’ll want to combine that with a strong understanding of the idea that a frictionless user experience can do wonders for your conversion rate.
Once you’ve established that foundation, you’ll be able to focus on building up your data-driven marketing strategy.
Learn to collect and analyze data efficiently, use automated tools, and continually improve on your marketing efforts.
If you’re able to do that, there’s no reason that your marketing campaigns can’t take you from the 5th page of Google to the 1st.