Your unique value proposition (UVP) may be the most important collection of words you ever write as a marketing professional.
This one- or two-sentence statement that concisely describes what you do, who you do it for, and why you are special, is in many cases the vital first impression about your brand or product.
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It frequently determines whether your prospective customer wants decides to stick around and learn more, or cross you off the list.
To be effective, your UVP has to address a real problem with a compelling solution. But it also needs to be used in the right way, and in the right places. Here’s how to craft an impactful UVP, and seven places to use it once you’ve honed and sharpened it.
How to Write a UVP
The basic steps in crafting your UVP are:
- Define your ideal client profile (ICP) or buyer persona.
- Describe the most important need your product fulfills.
- Identify your competitive set.
- Explain your key differentiator.
Supporting your UVP should be a set of (most commonly three) differentiating claims. These will generally include superlatives like “best,”, “largest,”, “first,”, or “only.” These claims must be backed up by (a minimum of three each) factual statements.
For example, a claim about being “first” or the “most innovative” may be backed up by the number of patents granted. Claims about being the “largest” may be supported by number of customer installations or online reviews.
Seven Places to Use Your UVP
Your UVP will not always be used in the same way, or even using precisely the same words. Depending on the context, more emphasis may be placed on your customers and prospects, their issues, your competition, or your differentiators.
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Sometimes it will be used as a standalone statement, and at other times with one or more of your differentiating claims. But broadly speaking, here are seven different places to use your UVP in some form.
Your Website Home Page (and Product Pages)
Just as when you meet a new person, when a new visitor hits your home page, you have seven seconds to make a first impression. Putting your UVP above the fold and making it one of the first bits of content a visitor sees will let them determine in that brief time if 1) they are your audience, 2) what your provide, and 3) what makes you different.
If that visitor has somehow landed in the wrong place (e.g., they aren’t in your audience because they own a small business and your product is targeted at enterprise buyers), they will bounce pretty quickly. And that’s okay.
But if they are a prospective customer, your UVP needs to be both highly visible and compelling enough to convince them to stick around and learn more.
Likewise, product-level UVPs should lead off the copy on your product pages. At some point, prospects will want to learn about the functional details, pricing, and other aspects of your product. But first, they have to be convinced that it is designed for people like them, that it can solve specific problems or meet specific needs they have, and that it’s different from or better than competitive alternatives in some meaningful way.
Your “About” Page
This is the place to really blow out your UVP and your differentiating claims, in all their glory.
“About Us” pages are among the most frequently mis-used real estate on the web. They are not about telling your company story or laying out your history in some sort of boring, chronological fashion. Your company isn’t a celebrity. No one cares much about it’s “life story.”
Rather, your About page is there to answer specific questions for specific audiences. Primarily, it’s there to explain to prospective customers why they should buy from you. Not just why your products or services are awesome, but what sets your company apart from competitors.
Secondarily, it’s probably (especially in the current tight labor market) there to explain to prospective employees why they should come work for you. What do you care about, what do you stand for, why is your company a cool place to work.
You may also have tertiary audiences like potential investors or partners, though their information needs will likely be met by pages specifically for them. Your About page should tell the big story, then direct them to those pages for more detail.
News Release Boilerplate
Every news release (and it really should be a “news” release that announces something consequential, not just a “press release” designed to produce cheap backlinks and annoy busy journalists) ends with an about-the-company paragraph.
This is another place to use your UVP, reworded slightly, tweaked, and customized to fit this format. But the same fundamental information is there: who you sell to, what you sell, and why your company is different from and special compared to competitors. That, along with PR contact information and your website URL.
Directory Listings and Buyers Guides
Vendor directories and buyers guides are often produced by industry-specific publications, associations, and other organizations. These online or PDF guides can be a great place to get exposure with specific groups of prospects and lend credibility to your brand.
In addition to your logo and basic company contact info, these guides and directories generally also ask for a company / product description of a specified length, e.g., 150 words or 300 words. These are another key place to use a variation of your UVP, tweaked and adjusted to make the most of the word count available.
Presentations and Podcasts
Your UVP doesn’t always need to be written out. Employees should know a shorthand version of your core message (what you do, who you do it for, and what sets your company or product apart) to use verbally in situations like business events and trade shows.
Even more impactfully, your key executives and other company representatives should be able to articulate your UVP clearly and concisely when they have the opportunity to present to an audience or be part of a podcast. This is your opportunity for a 30-second “commercial message” while sharing informative and useful content with listeners.
Social Media Account Profiles (Especially LinkedIn)
Use the 160 characters Twitter allows, the 2,000 characters LinkedIn permits, and whatever number of words or characters Facebook provides this week to communicate your UVP and expand on your brand or product differentiators to the extent possible.
Your company’s social media profiles are often the second (and sometimes the first) place prospective buyers will go to learn more about you, so make sure your messaging across these platforms is compelling, consistent with your website, and always up to date.
Media Quotes (Carefully)
Opportunities for your company executives to get quoted in industry publications are gold. They lend huge credibility to your brand as well as positioning your top people as industry thought leaders.
If the journalist asks the executive to explain what you do directly, that’s great! You can use your UVP or “elevator pitch” in standard form (and the journalist will tweak as they like).
More often, you’ll be asked for a description of your company to accompany the quote. At the least, this is an opportunity to make sure the story gets your “who you sell to” and “what you do” details right. While journalists generally won’t let you get too “marketing-y” in this description, you may be able to include a differentiating claim—as long as you can back it up with facts.
In Conclusion
Crafting your UVP is one of the first marketing things to do for a new company or product. Just as developing the product lays the foundation for it’s success in use, your UVP is the foundation for describing and promoting it.
It’s vital to spend time thinking about all of the elements that go into a UVP and wordsmithing it. Mark Twain (or possibly someone else) is credited with having said, “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” In other words, brevity is hard. But brevity is essential to a powerful and memorable UVP. So spend the time on it.
Once you’ve done that, though, capitalize on the time you’ve spent by using that UVP, or minor variations of it, in as many places and situations as possible. The list above is a solid start.
Webbiquity has been named a Top 10 Minnesota Digital Marketing Agency by DesignRush.