Bertha's Blog: Are You Communicating Your Value Proposition the French Way?

Every company has an online business card – their website. How you present yourself, what information you offer, and most importantly – how you communicate both of those things can determine whether a potential customer will stay on your website or not. That’s where value proposition comes in, do you have what it takes to entice a potential customer to stay?

If you’ve ever been to France you’d have noticed how outrageously gorgeous that country is and how hard it is to get what you need without searching for it. Think of France like of a wonderful new website that you’ve stumbled upon while searching for something.

You found a business that caters to your needs but as you click on the link you realize that everything about that website is wrong. Where’s the heading? What are they REALLY offering? Is there a price range or any sort of information about the business? Nope, it’s a beautiful website with a lot of foreign marketing words and no clear help as to what is where and how it all works.

Does that scenario sound a little familiar? Is your website, or any website you’ve ever visited, communicating in a very French manner? If it is, maybe it’s time to learn a little bit more about what value proposition is and how you can make it work for you, no matter what language you use.

Value proposition for dummies

Let’s get started by defining exactly what a value proposition is. According to Investopedia, “A value proposition is a business or marketing statement that a company uses to summarize why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. This statement convinces a potential consumer that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings”

And why do you need it? To quote Peep Laja from Conversion XL, “Value proposition is the #1 thing that determines whether people will bother reading more about your product or hit the back button.”

To break it down in a few points, you need to look at your landing page and identify if it has a clear:

Headline
Sub-headline
List of key benefits
Images to represent you and your product

Keeping your menu (website) open, let us jump into the kitchen and see what cuisine you’re cooking up for your customers.

Transforming A-Z

The first step to improvements is knowing where you’re going. Michael Skok outlined where to start in his Forbes article:

Define – What does your customer need? What is he or she looking for?
Evaluate – Is your business the answer to that need? Can you provide a unique enough breakthrough?
Measure – How will the customer use your product, will he/she gain or lose by taking up your offer?
Build – Knowing the above 3 points, construct a proposition that will answer all the customers’ questions.

Look at the first couple sentences of your landing page. You want it to be a very well written menu at the best French cafe you can think of. Who is your target audience? Can you write, in a couple of sentences, what your customer persona looks like? Then, without using all that marketing jargon, outline what you are selling and what is the end benefit of using your product or offer. What makes your offer unique and different from your competitors?

Once you get a grasp on the who, what, and why’s – you have all the ingredients of a fine value proposition! All that’s left is positioning it all in the right places of your website.

Get inspired to do more

You want the most important information at the top of your page. That’s the top of the Eiffel tower that everyone is looking for – what does this business offer? Take a note from GetResponse’s very simple but effective page:

are you communicating your value proposition the French way?

You know exactly what you can expect from GetResponse, and if you scroll further down all four offers are explained in more detail – that’s the entrance to the tower, all the benefits and answers to every problem a customer may have.

We get to see the price package (with a handy link to a page that compares GetResponse’s prices and offer with their competitors):

And finally, we’re shown the value from the point of view of others. Customer reviews are the golden dot above the value propositions “i”:

This is the deal closer and the extra oomph that a customer needs to decide. Do I stick around or look elsewhere? Most importantly, GetResponse understands the visual factor of it all and provides amazing images, videos, and excellent views for every desktop and mobile user out there.

Your Turn!

If you ever get lost, just remember our four simple rules:

Heading – What does your business do?
Sub-heading – 2 to 3 sentences explaining the value of your offer
List – How does a customer benefit from your services and how are you different from your competitors?
Visually appealing – Make your website stand out. Add videos, images, or photos that show you or your business, make it relatable.

Tailor your content for your audiences and always A/B test your landing pages, sometimes all it takes is a different font or different CTA button color.

What else would you add to the perfect value proposition to take your website from French to well travelled and absolutely communicative French? Share in the comments below!