There are a number of key things that we’re going to go over when it comes to adding value.

The first thing to think about is: How, from a strategic perspective, does a business formulate and carry out a robust digital strategy?

Clearly, businesses don’t operate within silos and, as a consequence, they need to think about the external environment. In this, competitors will play an important role.

Once we’ve done our analysis to evaluate what’s happening in the external environment–we need to think about our strategic objectives and craft out our value proposition to execute & penetrate the marketplace and gain a competitive advantage.

Defining a Successful Value Proposition

Let’s think about the value proposition. What exactly does it mean?

Well, the first thing to think about is the ultimate, over-arching offering that you give your customers that add value to them, their lives or a service/product that they then offer to somebody else.
It’s the total sum of both the product as well as the experience that you give them.

The best analogy in this context is McDonald’s. A product is a cheeseburger, a proposition is a happy meal. It’s the total sum of the experience.
The toys, the service, the various components, the ability to pick and choose what you want for your happy meal. All these things form a component of the value proposition.

You need to approach this from a consumer needs perspective.
What exactly is the consumer asking of you and are you delivering that to them in a way which offers the most value over-and-above other offerings that they can get in the marketplace?

The marketplace offers becomes quite critical and it’s not just that the offering is important, but it’s also how you communicate that offering and how you position that offering that becomes particularly relevant as well.

These are just some of the key nuggets to think about as you define your overarching value proposition.

When thinking about this you can apply this to the customer realm. The products and services fulfil a certain task or job that you are asking it to do.

That means that you need to have some level of value or need that is fulfilling.
You must be very clear about the value that your product is actually fulfilling and then be able to deliver that value.

Customer Application

One of the latest techniques to come through is a jobs-based approach.

View your product through the final outcome that a customer is using it for.

What job are you fulfilling, or what job is your customer filling, as a consequence of using your product?

Ultimately your product will have pains as well as gains for your customers.
As part of that proposition iteration process, try and minimize pains that you’re offering your customer while increasing the gains that you currently have.

The rationale is if you get it right, your customers will be more satisfied with you, stay with you for longer, want to purchase more of what you’ve got and also become keen advocates of yours and the proposition that you are supplying them.

Characteristics and Components

Let’s think a little bit about the characteristics and components that make up the digital value proposition.

Avoids Business Jargon

It’s important to be clear and concise with what exactly you will be offering.

Unique

It also needs to be quite unique, given the level of transparency digital products have in the marketplace.

Easy to Understand

It’s easy for consumers to be able to compare one product with another, so it’s important that yours comes and stands out as the clear winner–because of it’s unique nature.

Clear

If it’s not easy to understand, it’s going to be very difficult for anybody to actually make that purchase.
A convoluted customer journey or a convoluted product description becomes a barrier for people to adopt your product.

Fulfils Customer Need

It also must be very specific about what need it is fulfilling.

Being specific about the customer need is a real differentiator. More and more people are communicating the need that a product is fulfilling or the jobs done that it is fulfilling than ever before.

Specific

And that brings us to the holistic customer need to be that needs to be fulfilled, which needs to be very clear at the outset.

So there you have it, some of the key things to think about when adding value to your value proposition.