All About Your Unique Value Proposition

Build a Brand

(Starting with what the hell a UVP is.)

What is a UVP?

A UVP — or unique value (or selling) proposition — is your key strength, and it’s what makes you stand out from your competitors. It’s the thing you want to be most known for, and it’s the reason why your customers will choose you (and keep choosing you) over anyone else.

Your UVP might come from your product or service: the quality of your product, a certain feature of your service, or the results your customers will achieve through their purchase. It could even be about the way you deliver to your customers: your values, your customer service, or your brand personality.

(Ps. At the bottom of this blog you’ll find a super helpful gift waiting for you to help you define your UVP.)

What is not a UVP?

Very important: your unique value proposition is not having the lowest price — unless you’re Bunnings. But a race to be the cheapest service is a race to bottom where no one wins. Your time and your skills are more valuable than that, and your UVP should explain to your customers why you’re valuable, and that means you’re worth paying for.

Why is a UVP important?

You know that you’re unique, but your potential customers don’t — yet. With your UVP as the basis for all of your marketing and messaging, you’ll let them know how you stand out from the crowd.

A clear UVP will attract customers to you ahead of your competitors. If a customer is deciding whether to buy from you or from another business offering the same service, and your point of difference is that you promise a result that’s important to the customer, you’ll make it easier for them to choose you.

Defining your value with a UVP also has a nice side effect. It doesn’t just make your worth clear to your customers, it’s an important reminder for you too, and it gives you confidence in pricing and selling your service.

What’s your UVP?

To get started, think about your ideal customer. Your customer has a problem, and you’re going to solve it for them better than anyone else can. So, how do you help them achieve their goal? How will your customer feel because of your products or services?

Now, think about you. What is the product or service that you offer? Is there something different or unique about you that helps you stand out from your competitors?

The next stage is to remind yourself that you’re fab. (Repeat this stage anytime, anywhere.) And once you’ve done that, think about your FAB:
Features, or characteristics of your business, your product, or your service;
Advantages, or what these features achieve; and
Benefits, what your customers get out of it and why they value those advantages.

To pin down your UVP, you can use your answers to fill in the blanks:

[Your business] provides [target audience] with [product/service] to [help them achieve a specific goal]. Unlike [alternative options], we [key reason you stand out].

This might not sound very smooth at first, so feel free to change things up until it does. Although it’s tempting to try and include every single positive thing about your business, less is more here, so keep the focus on the things your customers will genuinely value.

How do you use your UVP?

It’s probably not catchy enough to use as a slogan, but you can use the idea behind your UVP for every choice you make for your business. With a UVP to remind yourself of how you serve your target audience better than anyone else can, you can deliver your message directly to your customers and market your sales specifically towards them.

Your UVP can guide all of your choices in your online presence and your marketing, from your social media profiles to your advertising to emails; it can shape your brand’s look and feel through your colour palette and typography; and it can even inform your policies, customer service guidelines, and terms and conditions.