Whether online or offline, a unique value proposition (UVP) is critical for any sales narrative. However, people seem to have a limited understanding of them. They often overthink the difficulty of writing an excellent unique value proposition. In reality, complexity doesn’t make your product look better (Neuroscience proved it).

Clarity trumps complexity in order to write a great value proposition

Picture a very skeptical person: what would make her so excited about your offer? It will be easier if break down this question into two essential questions:

• What is in it for me? (WIIFM)
• Why should I choose you (over X)?

It might seem easy to be applied to any context. However, companies (especially those very product-oriented) tend to overvalue what is unique about their product, forgetting about what the market needs. What does your audience need?

The Building Blocks of a Great Unique Value Proposition

How can you move away from a features-focused mindset to a customer pain and customer experience-focused? Let’s start by visualizing what builds up a great unique value proposition, based on Momoko Price’s methodology:

We have to aim the sweet spot between all three aspects below:

• What your customers want
• What your product does that helps customers to achieve what they want
• What is unique about your product that helps strengthen that offer

I know these questions might seem overwhelming, and hard to figure especially if your company has few or no traffic, your product is new, with an unproven business model. That’s why you need a logical and repeatable framework to create an effective UVP.

7 Steps to Brainstorm the Best UVP For New & Niche Products

(Based on Momoko Price’s methodology)

Important: the best way to execute these 7 steps is by using a spreadsheet – it will make the process easier to understand and faster to finish. Use this spreadsheet as a template.

1) List Your Product’s Key Features

What does your product do? List the features and critical resources involved.

2) Pinpoint Those That Are Unique

Which things are particular about the product?

3) List Customer Pain Points For Each Feature

Here is where we switch from what your product does to how your product impacts your customer’s life. How do your features relate to your audience’s pain points?

4) Define Desirable Outcomes For Each Pain

What is the positive side of eliminating your customer’s pain? What is your customer getting from solving that problem? Those improvements are critical to building a great UVP.

5) Score Pains/Outcomes by Severity & Frequency

There are differences between eliminating immense, severe pains, and just moving away from inconveniences. You have to figure out the real sorrow for your prospects; that’s when scoring comes into the picture. Define scores based on 1) severity and 2)frequency.

6) Edit Top-Scored Pain/Outcomes Into UVPs

Tally up the scores features and pain points and outcomes that resulted from the previous step. You’ll have the highest scores in terms of the most significant pain points — that’s what you want to be focused on to write a killer unique value proposition.

7) Last step: Score the UVPs (and go with the best one)

Pick the UVPs you like the most and start using them. Finally, this is an example of what Momoko could build after the entire process of answering questions:

Keep in mind: this process analyses assumptions. It’s totally ok and useful to start assumptions, especially if your product is new and you have few clients and not enough time to get market validation. Experimenting and validating your value proposition with external tests are also very important. As soon as possible, start testing them with the market.

I hope this article gave you a pretty good understanding of how to follow a clear and effective framework focused on customers to come up with a valuable unique selling proposition.