Creating a Startup Value Statement that Works

This is a guest post by April Dunford, RocketWatcher.com

For many startups, creating good marketing messages is a real challenge. Why? It’s simple — many startup founders have never done messaging before. But in my opinion, anyone can craft a good set of messages by starting with a well-articulated value statement and working from there.

A good value statement answers three key questions for prospects:

• What is it?
• Is it for me?
• Why should I buy it (from you)?

Prepare: Putting your prospect hat on

Before you start messaging, you need to put yourself in the mind of your customers. This is not about creating messages for yourself or some fictional non-tech savvy grandparent. You are creating messages that reach your particular prospects. They come with their own language, common knowledge, pains and aspirations.

Now that you have those people in mind, answer these three questions for them (in order!):

Question 1: What is it?

Many startups skip this step because they are so close to their own products they forget that the answer may not be obvious for new prospects.

This step may sound simple, but it’s rarely easy to do. You’ll need to distill the answer down to a short phrase (be sure to use English and not some three-word tagline – nobody except you will ever understand what you mean by “Explore, Connect, Inspire”). Don’t use any jargon and keep it as straightforward as possible.

You shouldn’t worry about selling anyone yet either; this step is simply about stating what you do in a way that your prospects will understand. The harder you find this step, the more important it is.

Question 2: Is it for me?

Once a prospect knows what you do, they will then wonder if it’s something that they might want or need. The more directly you communicate whom your product or service is a good fit for and why, the more likely it is that prospects in your target market will stick around and click around.

You can define this in many ways – types of companies, roles, demographics, or even by the specific problem domain (I’ll give some examples at the end of this article).

Question 3: Why should I buy it (from you)?

The last question to answer involves the differentiated value that your offering provides relative to alternatives. Value is not about features, it’s about how you are going to improve life for your prospects. For example, a feature for a camera would be the number of megapixels, but the value is the sharpness of the image it produces.

Differentiation is critical here. Showcasing value that every one of your competitors can also deliver isn’t nearly as interesting as the value you can bring that the others can’t. Also don’t forget that for many startups, the alternative often isn’t another product or service, but to simply do nothing.

Putting it all together

This exercise should provide you with the core elements of what you need to express. The last step is to combine the pieces into a simple phrase or statement, which you need to keep as short as possible.

Examples of quality value statements

I could give you hundreds of examples of vacant slogans and incomprehensible three-word taglines, but it’s not nice to pick on people. Instead, here are a few that I think work:

Instagram – Fast, beautiful photo sharing for your iPhone

It’s a photo sharing service, the target market consists of folks with iPhones, and the key value is that it helps you take beautiful photos that you can share quickly.

Kareo – Easy, affordable, web-based medical billing

In this case, what it is (medical billing software) also covers who it’s for. The value is that it’s easy and affordable. Including “web-based” in the message helps back up the claim of easy and affordable since those are attributes commonly associated with web-based software.

Firmex – Share large volumes of documents, instantly, easily and with absolute security

This is another one where the nature of what the company does (“share large volumes of documents”) also defines its target segment. The value (“instantly, easily and with absolute security”) is stated clearly and confidently.

Chango – Chango works with Media Planners and Search Marketers to deliver new customers by targeting dynamic display ads to users based on their recent search activity on Google, Yahoo!, Bing and more

OK, this value statement is a little long, but I still like it for several reasons. It clearly defines what the product is (“targets dynamic display ads based on recent search activity”), who it’s for (“Media Planners, and Search Marketers”) and the value (“delivering new customers”).

April Dunford is a Marketing Executive and the author of Rocket Watcher, a popular blog covering marketing strategies for startup organizations. You can follow her on Twitter @aprildunford.