Here’s One of the Most Important Things You Need for a Successful Brand
Why You Need a Statement of Value for More Effective Marketing
Every day it feels like a new tool or platform comes out that businesses need for marketing in the digital age. There are thousands of marketing tools out there, and it can be hard to know which methods actually work to:
Attract your perfect audience, and
Convert that audience into sales.
Let’s face it:
There are probably other brands out there doing very similar things to what you’re doing.
Other leadership consultants for recent grads.
Other environmental nonprofits taking plastic out of the oceans.
Other astrologers.
Other life coaches.
Other tech startups addressing homelessness...
Even if you know your product or service is the best on the market, hands down, or you have the *secret sauce*... that doesn’t mean you automatically get a leg up over other organizations or brands.
So what’s a brand to do when there are more marketing tools than ever, but it also feels more difficult than ever to get more leads and sales?
Here at Lumen Digital Marketing, we’ve helped multiple million-dollar businesses maximize their profits, target the right new customers, and get their previous customers coming back for more. We know what works in digital marketing for purpose-driven companies.
In transforming businesses for the better for almost a decade, one of the most important things we’ve discovered is just how important it is to have a strong Statement of Value.
Wait — a statement of what?
What is a Statement of Value?
A Statement of Value (SOV) describes the value your product or service brings to the market by summarizing the role it has in the lives of your customers.
Statement of Values should be succinct and specific. They should accurately summarize how your product or service will improve someone’s life.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right?
… Not quite.
A Statement of Value can be extremely difficult for companies to create. To form an effective SOV, businesses need to look beyond the simple cause-and-effect of buying their product, and instead see the larger picture of how their product can change someone’s life for the better.
How to Create a Statement of Value to Build a Successful Brand
While Statements of Value can vary greatly based on the business, all SOVs should speak to four aspects of a customer’s life:
What they have
How they feel
How your product or service will impact their average day
How your product or service will change their status
In order for your marketing campaigns to address these, there are a few questions to keep in mind as you create your Statement of Value. And while these questions are tightly intertwined, it is helpful to parse them out to fully understand the value of your product or service.
So ask yourself (and your team) these questions when writing your Statement of Value:
First, what is the state of your customers before and after they use your product or service?
Second, how would your product or service will impact your ideal customer’s their average day?
Finally, how will your product or service raise the status of your customers?
Once you have answered these questions, you’ll know how your product or service will impact someone in the four ways listed above.
The Before & After Effect
When we create Statements of Value, it’s helpful to look at “before” and “after” stages for your customer. What does their life look like before having my product or service? What does it look like after?
Here are some questions to help you brainstorm how your product might impact someone’s life:
Will my product or service give them more time for themselves?
Will it help them grow personally or professionally?
Will it make them feel proud of themselves?
Will it make them look or behave more favorably, according to society’s standards?
Understanding what the ideal “after” state for your customers looks like is a vital component to crafting a great Statement of Value — and, in turn, getting more customers.
Let’s say the service you provide is massages. You don’t want to tell customers that after they get a massage from you, they’ll have relaxed muscles. It’s too obvious, and your competitors are going to be sending the same message. So, let’s go beyond the obvious. Perhaps the ideal “after” state for your customers is that, after a massage at your spa, they are now so relaxed and pain-free that they are happier at work, more attentive with their families, and more in-tune with themselves.
Improve Their Average Day
In that same vein, the argument that, “After getting a massage from us, your average day will be calm and collected, while before you were tense and unhappy” is a much stronger reason for buying a massage than simply saying, “your body will feel relaxed.”
You are showing your customers how their average day will improve after using your service. They will go through life healthier and happier than before.
Raise Their Status
Another thing to keep in mind is status change. How might your product or service make them look better in the eyes of their community? Their family? Their relationship?
In the previous example, because the massage customer now lives a more relaxed, pain-free life, they are a more high-functioning employee, a more attentive parent, a kinder person.
Boom.
You moved your customer from an unsatisfied “before” state to a happier “after” state.
You proved that their average day will change when they use your product or service.
And you showed them how their status at home and in public will increase because of it.
How is This Different Than a Unique Selling Proposition?
Great question!
A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is the unique benefit of a specific product or service that allows it to stand out from the competition. USPs are helpful at distinguishing one brand from another and helping certain products gain recognition.
But they’re not as helpful as SOVs.
On paper they sound pretty similar, with one major difference: USPs are inherently product- or service-centric. They show why a particular product or service is different from the competition. SOVs focus not on the product or service itself, but on the thoughts, feelings, daily life, and status of potential customers.
SOVs are more effective than USPs because, rather than focusing on what a customer will have once they have the product, they focus on who the customer will be.
That’s the power of the SOV.
We recommend that every business we work with has an SOV. We help our clients craft their own unique statements that will actually set them apart from the competition.
And since most companies are following a marketing funnel with USPs instead of SOVs, using an SOV will make you stand out even more.
How to Craft Your Statement of Value
Now that you understand what a Statement of Value is and why it’s special, let’s walk through how to create an SOV of your own, one step at a time.
Step 1: Identify your flagship product or service.
Step 2: Identify your ideal customer. Remember, you won’t be sharing your SOV with customers, so you can be blunt about what kind of audience you’re targeting.
The best thing you can do for your brand is to be super specific about who your ideal clients or customers are. From there, you can build an awesome marketing campaign that targets the particular needs of your ideal customers.
Step 3: Articulate what the ideal “after” state is for your customers. Again, being super specific is important. If you’re vague about what your customers will get out of using your product or service… well, they probably won’t give it a chance to find out what it can do for them!
Step 4: Write your Statement of Value. Finally, the big moment!
Here’s a great formula to start with:
[Product/service] enables [customers] to experience [desired after effect of your market].
Don’t be afraid to get creative with it. Depending on what you’re selling, it might make sense to change or replace words.
But this is at least an easy skeleton to follow when determining where your product fits into the market and why customers should choose you over competitors.
Examples of Statements of Value
Statements of Value can vary greatly depending on the brand, so we created a few examples to guide you as you write your own.
If you run an online course that helps entrepreneurs get in touch with their intuition, your SOV might read, “Our online courses empower spiritual entrepreneurs & creatives to experience a sense of belonging in the world so that they can fulfill their Highest Purpose.”
If you’re an eco-tour company, your SOV could be, “We enable environmentally-conscious travellers to explore and embrace the culture of the Hawaiian islands while helping to make the world a more sustainable place.”
If you’re an astrology company, your SOV might read, “We guide the cosmically curious to experience a greater understanding of the universe and themselves.”
If your flagship product is bathing suits made out of recycled plastic from the oceans, your SOV could say: “Our business helps people who care about the earth to jump into summer knowing they’re making the world a better, less polluted place.”
Since we like to take our own advice… Here’s our Statement of Value:
“Lumen Digital Marketing helps purpose-driven businesses double their impact, reach and revenue so they can change the world.”
Voila!
There you have it! Now you understand one of the most important tools for strengthening your marketing campaigns.
Implement your own Statement of Value and watch your messaging better connect with your audience.
Still not sure about your market fit? Wondering why your awesome product isn’t getting noticed?
We can help you create the perfect SOV to ensure you’re targeting the best audience and converting that audience to sales.