Your logo rocks but founders, make sure your value proposition does too!
Your brand needs a rocking UVP too!
In the process of building our businesses, a typical accidental pitfall is to think we've taken control of our brand and our unique value proposition by creating a logo and a great strapline or slogan or even the front page of our website. And that’s all we need to do.
Don't get me wrong, the logo is super important, but as expert logo designer Sagi Haviv put it, "a logo is the period at the end of a sentence, not the sentence itself."
Your brand is made up of so much more; it's the space in your customers' thoughts that you want to occupy, such as the first, best, sexiest, safest etc. And your strapline or slogan is designed to encapsulate your entire brand image in no more than a few words.
And your unique value proposition drives these things, but it's fundamentally different. I would argue it is strategic to your business's heart and if possible should not be left to the brand agency to consider.
The value proposition is defining the promise of value you're making to your audience and should be felt through every part of your business. Before you even get to the brand, you first need to do the work to define and articulate this critical part in the equation. Because without this, even with a dynamite logo or sassy strapline, you will be doomed to your customers most likely misunderstanding you and not connecting with that fantastic brand you've created.
Your logo and strapline only get you so far.
I recently landed on a startup "socially responsible" challenger in an existing home delivery grocery retail vertical. They had obviously spent time and budget on a logo and working out packaging design with an agency that looked fab. The problem was it was so unclear why anyone should spend their time and money with them versus just doing what they've always done that I never got out my credit card. It took me over 10mins to figure out why I might consider using them over Ocado, and I stayed because I have a sadistic need to figure it out!
If a customer can't understand in 2-5 seconds what value you bring to their lives, they will ignore whatever beautiful brand positioning and logo you've created a move on by, and you've lost them. And yes, this company had a few customers and reviews, and you might too. But I would easily take a bet that if not friends or family, those early customers are what we like to think of as "innovators" or even possibly "early adopters" by nature, which means they will overlook a weak positioning to be the first to try something. But that is not your market.
Unfortunately, they are not the folks who will grow your business. Innovators, for example, only make up 2.5% of your market on average. Leverage the heck out of those early customers for insight and refine your UVP but don't make the mistake of not doing that work and assuming it will be okay because you get a few early customers to start with.
Clarity is critical
The lack of clarity around the unique value you bring leaves a wide-open goal for your competition. Ultimately, missing the clarity on how you solve a specific pain that your customers are desperate to be solved is often flagged as one of the main reasons startups fail. If a competitor can get there faster and articulate it better, your customers will go to them no matter how pretty your logo or clever your strapline is.
This point is critical to take on board. Not knowing or correctly articulating what makes you special from the customer's point of view in a language your customers can understand can kill your business. Your challenge is to do this in the most human and authentic way possible. If you’ve used one buzzword or industry fancy pants language, go back to the drawing board. Your core value proposition needs to be so straightforward and simple that someone can understand it in seconds, not have to go to the dictionary.
By not working out your USP and then aligning a clear brand position to your USP to tell your novel story, there is an excellent chance that you aren't giving your audience any clue as to why they should care and what they should do think about you. And if you don't tell them in a way that they can understand, they will make something up in its absence. It's usually not in your favour. That or they'll ignore you altogether. Neither being a great prospect.
Solving this is to remember, it's about real people.
The customer who will buy from you is a real person with limited bandwidth and budget who is more concerned about their problem and how they will solve it than how cool you are or even your latest feature. Ultimately you're asking them to divert attention from their current lives, kids, football game, priority list, annoying boss to pay attention and fall into crush, love, lust with you over any other solution or service.
It is your mission to keep asking why and what. Keep asking why a customer would care, what will they get out of this, why does it matter, what makes this so important to them, why should they put done the TV remote and think about you? Keep going until you can ask any more. What do they get in return by you solving their pain.
Collate all the answers. Start talking to your customers or potential customers and find out which of all the answers really matter to them. What is the bit that shifts their mindset to say, yes to you.
Make sure you also put this in context. You need to show why now is the time as well. Why the world is revolving to make this the perfect time for your solution.
It sounds simple. But it’s challenging to actually step back and do this work correctly. But if you do, you’re creating a massive critical advantage for your business!
You're beautiful logo and strapline may capture their attention, but it won't last if you haven't done the work to enable your customers to figure out why you.
Remember that new grocery site I mentioned. Well, it turns out that their UVP is to automate the delivery of your core shopping list, the things you order all the time by estimating when you would run out of them. I somehow don’t think that they’ve finished asking why them because all I could think of was the standard shopping list that I have set up in the online grocery store I do use or Amazon on subscription. But, maybe I might not be the one feeling the pain.
Doing this work will force you to also do the work to figure out if you’ve got a nice idea OR you have the making of something unique and spectacular.