Overview
We are joined once again by our good friend Sophie Davies, from Your Marketing Department to discuss the foundations of a Value Proposition and how this relates to all things marketing, from strategy to web design and social media.
Highlights:
0:00- Introduction
0:57- Defining Value Proposition
3:30- The importance of Value Propositions
6:11- Examples of effective Value Propositions
8:17- Value Propositions in B2B Marketing
11:43- Founder stories and Personal Branding
14:10- Future plans
Sam Sayer 0:00
Hi Sophie, Nice to see you again.
Sophie Davies 0:01
Nice to see you too.
Sam Sayer 0:04
Cool. So if you haven’t seen the previous videos we’ve done with Sophie, please do check them out. Do a quick little intro, I guess, Sophie, for those who haven’t.
Sophie Davies 0:15
Yeah. So I’m Sophie. I run your marketing department, so basically helping out with strategy and running your marketing for you from an in house point of view, working with DeType and other agencies to deliver that marketing, so having trusted suppliers I know can deliver on time, on budget and get the results that we need to hit business objectives. So, yeah that’s what we do in internal marketing departments.
Sam Sayer 0:48
Fab. So this is something we’ve talked about a lot, and there’s actually it was the first idea of the video, and this is now our third but it is the root of everything, and we need to do it from a brand and web perspective. You need to know it or do it for marketing perspective. It’s something we’ve, you know, connected on and talked about a lot, yeah, and it is value proposition.
Sophie Davies 1:12
Value Proposition!
Sam Sayer 1:15
This will be interesting to sort of, I think, take it in turn to describe what that means. So Sophie, I’ll throw you in the deep end first, what’s, what’s a value proposition?
Sophie Davies 1:24
So a value proposition, technically, is a description of what you do for your customers. However, it’s very difficult to take that and put it into marketing. Sowhat I produce is probably a bit of a hybrid between a value proposition and brand proposition and general overall messaging. But for me, it is the core message that you want to go out to customers with that makes you stand out within the market, that differentiates you in the market, so people can understand why you’re different to all your competitors. That’s my description.
Sam Sayer 2:00
Perfect. Yeah, I’d Yeah, well done. I’ll say the same, yeah. In, from my eyes, from particularly from a website perspective, is you’ve got one core sentence that’s going to get people in, you know, half a second. I think the stat is, yeah. Do I know what you do? Can you help me? Do I like you? So it’s that’s a lot to capture in a sentence. And I think this is why ad agencies, you know, particularly in the 50s and well to this day, are so sought after. Because I do you know, so I think one of the most famous ones was Apple’s iPod, ‘1000 songs in your pocket’. Genius, you know, it describes the product. It gives you something new, and it’s easy, yeah, brilliant. I look up our value proposition on website. I’m not going to read out, I’ll probably want to change it after this but,you know, we get across what we do, what it means for you and why you need it. I think those are the core things, you know, on whether it’s and I suppose you need to have this as a business, as a core, yeah, but then we’ve got different landing pages, we’ve got our homepage and the different landing pages, and sometimes that adapts for a specific niche. Yeah, we work with a lot of property businesses, like letting estate agents and we talked about instructions rather than leads, because that’s their language. But I think the core concept of, what is it we do and how do we help you? I think how we help you is the most important bit of it.
Sophie Davies 3:35
I think it’s so important that it grounds everyone. So for the clients that we’ve done it for, literally grounds the whole organisation, and go, right, this is what we’re all about. And it’s very powerful, because it also gives you able an ability to be consistent in your messaging. People come to me and go, Oh, I just need to do. What else do I need to do? Marketing wise, and more often than not, it’s they might have a kind of value proposition, but doesn’t really mean a lot, and nobody really knows what it’s all about. And what we do is kind of bring it all into one sentence and four pillars. So I always like to have four pillars underneath so that people understand what it means. So we, well, you guys, can do it much better than us. So we do not do the pretty strap line. Because I’m not a creative. I’m very open about that. I’m creative in my own way, but I’m not a copywriter. I’m not an ad you know, I come from an ad agency, top ad agency background, and some of the stuff, you know, 1000 songs in your pocket, could never have come up with that. But we can reduce something that then you’ve got four pillars underneath that you always talk about. And I still think. You can do it as a basic and then work with companies like yours, who you can go, oh, well, we can turn that into which is what we did with an architect client, because I had some very clunky right thing about making dreams come true or something, and then the copywriter made it absolutely beautiful.
Sam Sayer 5:24
So yeah, because I’ve come from a branding background, and a lot of that was about the, you know, get knowing the value proposition was a real core selling point of the brand, you know, it helped describe what the visual aspects would be as well.
Sophie Davies 5:38
Yes, and that’s what’s so important. And one of the things that I find I have a lot of people coming to me going, Oh, just getting a website rebrand. And it’s kind of like but you don’t know what your key message is. So for people like you guys like it’s so difficult to get a really successful website without that work. And for me, it’s really important to have the background from the customer, you know, the customer background and market research behind it. Yeah, I know you guys provide a sort of, what I would call a service to do that, but it’s not the in depth, necessarily. And don’t think you need the in depth.
Sam Sayer 6:30
Excellent. Hey, you need, you need. I’ve got my tea ready here. So that’s all good. Yeah, so yeah, it’s understanding that the framework for it. I’m going to blow my own trumpet a little bit here. And this is my favorite ones I’ve done fora client, and I think it was, I’ll help explain it as well. So they do business contracts, so T’s and C’s, they do contract reviews, stuff like that. They’re not lawyers, they’re not sisters, they’re affordable. Lawyers and sisters are bloody expensive. But that kind of thing. And should be, you know, yes they can do that. But this company, BEB, I will tag you in the comments as well. They are specialist in just that. So I came up with business contracts on your terms. Straight away. You get what they do. It’s on your terms. So a lot of what I like to do is put it in the customers, you know, who’s reading it, put it in their voice.
Sophie Davies 7:22
Very important.
Sam Sayer 7:24
There’s a phrase I’ve heard a lot about, ‘weeing all your website’, as in, we do this, and we do that.
Sophie Davies 7:30
My pet hates. My absolute pet hates one of the worst B2B traits. So you don’t see it very much in B2C, business to consumer products. You see it everywherein B2B, we do this, we do that. I don’t care. And actually it kind of brings me back to the so what? So Hannah, who works with me, always says to me now to the one thing you’ve taught me is to ask, so what? At every point, why does the customer care? And that’s where the value proposition comes in, because actually that focuses you completely, focuses you on so what? And it means that you know you will focus on that. So what? Because you know, and it’s really difficult for within the B2B, and it’s interesting. Don’t know whether you’ve seen the LinkedIn B2B Institute, absolutely brilliant for anyone who does B2B marketing, because they’re showing through empirical research about the fact that actually B2B is no different from B2C, you’re still selling to a person, and you need to talk to their pain points, not talk about yourself.
Sam Sayer 8:46
Yeah, the Pain, Pleasure Paradise principle. So, what’s the pain? What’s the pleasure? What’s a success story.
Sophie Davies 8:55
Ooooh I like that!
Sam Sayer 8:55
I’ll give Al Tepper a shout for that. That’s his principle on it. But, yeah, exactly. I think that’s a great summary of the value proposition as well. Yeah, and from that. So when we’re doing it as an exercise, we often draw up all the things. So we’ve drawn up a list of our ideal client. Our ideal client is ambitious, is clear on what they’re doing as a service, because it’s amazing how people don’t, and we can help with that as well. Fun, professional, you know, a lot of the kind of obvious things, but for us, it’s the ambitious and fun aspect that draws to it. Because we don’t just want to do a run in the mill brand or website. We want to do something that’s going to be exciting, that someone’s going to be shouting about, yes, be really proud of and that, you know, when you distill that into a value proposition, that’s when the magic happens.
Sophie Davies 9:46
Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think it drives so much and it gives clarity. It’s really important to have that clarity, but I would argue that you don’t need so Ido it in a lot more detail. And. I actually would argue that you don’t need it. Also would love to sell it to a whole heap of people. I have done it with smallerbusinesses like solopreneurs, and actually it’s brilliant, but it’s not necessary to have lots and lots of research, because think you’re so close to your customers.I think it is important as you grow, and I’ve talked to a lot of people about kindof where the cusp is, and it’s about half million where actually that’s when you start to be really serious, and you’ve got to start doing marketing properly, rather than kind of winging it. So yeah, so from my point of view, I always actually advise people not to do the detailed one, do one with you guys, get to where you need to be. And then as you grow and you actually need to start really investing in marketing, to come to someone like us, who will then do the customer research, who will then do the market research, you’ll then look at what you’ve done already, understand the competitors, because also, as you grow your competitor, set changes, which is why I don’t tend to work with startups, for exactly that reason, because I think it’s a startup, having been a startup myself, you’re a bit all over the place.
Sam Sayer 11:14
That’s it. It’s rare that you get one that really, is really clear what they’re doing.
Sophie Davies 11:20
The irony, however, is that when I come in, we tend to go back to what the original purpose of the business is. Okay, yeah, as the business grows, we do the zigzag, and we go, oh, maybe we could do this, maybe we could do that, maybe do that. And then you get there, get come to me, and I go what was it? And that’s what it should be.
Sam Sayer 11:43
Absolutely. It’s amazing what you can find just drilling a bit further down to find out what the drive.
Sophie Davies 11:49
I love a founder story. Love a founder story. There’s always a reason why someone’s done it.
Sam Sayer 11:55
Absolutely, talk about it, right? That’s the thing they do. People go oh no they don’t want to know that. But they do! People want to connect with you.
Sophie Davies 12:01
I’ve worked with one client. She’s now in front of the camera. I worked with her five years ago, and we talked about it a lot. She said, I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be so it’s taken her four years, and now she’s in front of the camera.
Sam Sayer 12:19
It took me well longer than that, but here we are! I think with a lot of these things, you’ve got to go a bit out of your comfort zone as well, right?
Sophie Davies 12:32
Having your own business is all about going outside your comfort zone. I keep having to remind myself, it’s not always fun.
Sam Sayer 12:40
But you know, you are the master of your own destiny, right?
Sophie Davies 12:45
I love it.
Sam Sayer 12:46
Me too. Yeah, we’re what, 12/13, years in now.
Sophie Davies 12:51
We are 7. So I was Sophie Davis marketing for two, three years first, and then changed your marketing department. Yeah, that was four years ago, So officially on 4 years.
Sam Sayer 13:05
But yeah. And you know what? I love the name, because that is a great value proposition as well. Yes, simple, it’s effective, and it’s yours.
Sophie Davies 13:13
I’m Ron seal, yeah, I don’t mess about I’d like, yeah, you know I don’t work with sensitive clients because I’m very black and white. I’m quite Northern and and that’s why I ended up with what I call a Ron seal name.
Sam Sayer 13:31
Perfect.
Sophie Davies 13:32
Yeah, that’s who I am.
Sam Sayer 13:34
I think, yeah, I’ve just over thought these things. But when you do it for yourself, it’s a bit different I suppose.
Sophie Davies 13:38
Oh, it’s so difficult, so difficult. I actually had someone helping you about I didn’t come up with it. Okay? So I had a marketing help with it. So I had a marketing mentor for a little bit. As I was kind of transitioning, I knew I wanted to change away from my name. And then, yeah, she came up with it, actually, she came up with the marketing department. And I went, No, I don’t want the marketing department, your marketing department.
Sam Sayer 14:06
Yeah, I love it. Yeah, that’s good. Excellent. All right. Well, thanks again Sophie.
Sophie Davies 14:12
It was a pleasure, lovely to see you again.
Sam Sayer 14:14
Look forward to our next chat. I think off the back all these I’ll come up with loads of loads more ideas of what we do next as well. So, yeah, excellent,
Sophie Davies 14:21
Fabulous
Sam Sayer 14:24
All right, okay.
Sophie Davies 14:24
Bye!
