Look, I get it. Writing a decent value proposition for your brand is hard.
You’ve got so much to communicate, right?
But you’ve only got a sentence or two to really communicate the value of your brand.
Deciding what it is you should be communicating is anything but easy.
But, I’m gonna change that today. I’m gonna teach you the system I developed after analysing the value propositions of hundreds of brands who are – at minimum – doing 7-figures in revenue.
Follow this guide and you’ll have a better value proposition that converts more customers in no-time.
Let’s start with the basics.
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What is a value proposition?
In short, it’s a promise of the value your offer provides to the customer.
And the best value props also hint at how you’re going to be able to provide that value.
It’s key that you hit on those two elements.
- The benefit
- The method
The benefit is needed to pique interest. After all, your customers are only really interested in how you help them solve a problem.
The method is needed to add credibility to the promise of the benefit.
Saying “we’ll help you lose weight” doesn’t do much to inspire trust. Especially in the age of hundreds of scammy competitors.
But saying “lose weight with our ‘muscle confusion’ exercises” is automatically more trustworthy because there’s a methodology attached.
So, at its core, that’s what a value prop outlines.
How you help – as in the benefit you offer.
What you do – as in the mechanism you use to generate the benefit.
Don’t worry if you’re not 100% on this yet. I’m gonna run you through a simple template below.
How to write your value proposition today
This is, without doubt, the best and easiest to follow value proposition process I’ve seen.
I might be biased, but it’s helped me create some incredible value propositions that have converted like crazy.
I’m pulling this specific value prop template and process from the Noom study.
Step 1 to this is to identify your perfect customers.
You can’t write a relevant value proposition if you don’t know who it is you serve.
So step 1 is to really target a specific segment of your wider audience.
Or, to be blunt about it, target the most profitable segment of your audience. And more specifically, target a specific problem they face.
If you’re not sure who that should be, check your current customer base and find the customers who provide…
- The least amount of work for you (as in they don’t need a lot of support)
- Have the highest LTV and AoV
- Make up the most profitable segment of your customers
Build out a very basic customer persona of that ideal customer.
Ignore the BS things people tell you when it comes to customer persona.
Only include gender and age etc if your product actually offers a benefit for people in those demographic segments.
Focus more on their biggest problems and what they wish they had to solve it along with the transformation that solution would bring.
Once you know who it is you’re targeting and what they really want, run through the How, What, Why method.
Here’s the simple breakdown of those 3 elements.
You basically need to cover 3 areas.
- How do you help your ideal customer?
- What is it you do?
- Why should they care?
To help you figure this out, I’ve written out 3 questions to help you identify answers to the above.
- How do you change your ideal customer’s daily life for the better?
- What method do you use to improve their life?
- Why should they care about your offer over the competitions’?
Answer those 3 in the shortest possible terms.
That will give you the basics of a great value proposition cause you’ll have…
- The benefit
- Then mechanism
- Your differentiator
With that knowledge, you have the components of a good value prop that will help communicate your true value to your best customers.
Now let’s work on putting it together.
Value proposition template
This is where things get a little more complex.
You have the components of a great value proposition, but putting them together can get tricky.
You have 3 primary elements to help you communicate the How, What, and Why of your value prop.
- Headline
- Sub-head
- CTA
Here’s how they might look on a page.
You need to customise those three sections to communicate the How, What, and Why of your offer.
There is no one perfect way to do this (as the value proposition examples below will highlight).
However, to get you started I’ve proposed a very simple structure below.
It’s similar to the ever-popular…
“I help X achieve Y with Z.
All you’re gonna do is explain…
HOW -> WHY -> with WHAT
If you’re a PPC agency who uses an Ai to help optimise bids, that might be something like…
- How do you help? – Increase ad spend.
- What is it you do? – You use a patented software to help optimise bids and reduce unnecessary spend.
- Why should they care? – Fast results. Your AI can make those amendments in 2 weeks.
So in a simple value proposition headline formula, that could be.
Increase ad spend ROI in 2 weeks with our patented optimisation AI.
Let’s do one more hypothetical and then move on to real examples.
In this one we’re gonna split the HOW -> WHY -> with WHAT What across the headline and subhead.
Let’s imagine your offer is a landing page creation software which enables people to quickly and easily create high-converting pages.
- How do you help? – Users get higher conversions
- What is it you do? – Landing page creation
- Why should they care? – Faster way to throw up well-designed pages that generate better results
So, that might look like the below if you split the headline and sub-head.
Create high-converting landing pages in minutes
Build high converting sales pages and popups to generate more leads from the traffic you’re already getting – all in under 10 minutes!
Now, neither of the above are gonna win any creative awards.
Nor are they particularly clever.
But clever marketing is often too focused on being witty that it sacrifices clarity and conversion potential.
Sure, the above might not sound sexy.
But, there’s nothing sexy that something that works and generates $$$.
A clear value proposition that speaks directly to your audience’s needs is what you need.
Let’s look at some real-life examples.
Value proposition examples
Up first, we have a B2C brand who specialise in weight loss.
Noom’s value proposition breakdown
Dan and I did a full breakdown of Noom’s marketing you can view here. However, there are a few things that are worth noting here.
Noom split the How, What, and Why across the headline and CTAs.
They’ve gone straight in and ignored the sub-head.
Which isn’t a big deal if you’re still able to fit in all 3 elements.
Here’s how the How, What, and Why of the value prop break down.
| How, What, or Why | Explanation | Element they use to communicate |
| How they help | Permanent health results (weight loss or get fit) | CTA |
| What they do | Psychology based approach to weight loss | Headline |
| Why you should care | Unlike other weight loss programs, Noom changes your behaviour so the results lass. | Headline |
As you can see, they hit all 3 areas and they’ve used this positioning to help grow to a 9-figure company.
Not bad, right.
Next up, let’s look at a software brand.
WP Engine’s value proposition
SaaS brands have to be some of the worst offenders when it comes to their value props.
WP Engine is no exception.
This is the original value prop they ran with.
It doesn’t really tell you anything about the brand, service, or the benefits of signing up.
So, I took the liberty of rewriting it to make it clearer using the How, What, Why method.
Here’s how the amendments looks.
Let’s break it down.
| How, What, or Why | Explanation | Element they use to communicate |
| How they help | Rank higher = more traffic / visibility for your brand | Headline |
| What they do | Specialist WP website hosting | Headline |
| Why you should care | Reliable, fast, and secure which most SEOs know will improve traffic and conversions | Headline and Sub-head |
With the rewrite, the offer is much clearer simply by answering the how, what, and why.
And you can see how, sometimes, one or two of the elements can be reinforced and reiterated across multiple elements.
Let’s finally take a look at an information product to see how, what, and why in action.
Todd Brown’s 5X your sales value proposition
Todd Brown and his team are masters of copywriting.
And that’s evident with the value proposition for his 5X Your Sales book.
Here’s how it breaks down.
Let’s break it down.
| How, What, or Why | Explanation | Element they use to communicate |
| How they help | Increases revenue from existing actions | Headline |
| What they do | A proven process | Headline |
| Why you should care | Fast and safe – this has been tried and tested. | Headline |
What’s key to note here is that they’ve fit all 3 elements into the headline.
What’s also interesting is how vague the What is.
In direct response marketing the What is often referred to as the unique mechanism. A lot of direct response copywriters prefer to hold off the the unique mechanism until later in the sales page.
They build anticipation for it and hint at it before revealing it as this massive eureka moment.
Personally, I’d prefer it to be more clear up front.
But I know for a fact that Todd will have tested the crap out of this and will likely have found this headline to work best.
Improve your value proposition today with the How, What, Why process
So there you have hit.
A relatively brief breakdown of what it takes to write a better value proposition.
As I said before, this isn’t going to give you some headline that’s gonna win all the creative awards out there.
But I’m not in this business for creativity.
I’m in it to make the communication between brands and people clearer.
Use this to clearly communicate the value of what you offer to your ideal customers.
And, if you’ve got that product-market fit to solve a real problem, this will help you land more new business.