How to Communicate VALUE to Your Clients

Why should people buy from you? Specifically you, and not someone else.

The answer to that question lies in how you communicate value to those potential customers. No matter how narrow your niche or how specialized your offerings are, you are most likely competing for the attention of your target audience with numerous other businesses. And it’s definitely a noisy, crowded marketplace out there these days!

This is why you NEED to communicate the value your specific product or service brings. But how do you go about doing this? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

1. Figure Out Your Product’s Promise

First, you need to identify what your product or service promises. This is also called your value proposition.

For example, Dollar Shave Club uses the slogan “Shave Time. Shave Money.” This resonates with prospects because it’s personal, on brand, and offers an immediate benefit. Just like Dollar Shave Club has done, you should figure out an immediate benefit associated with your product or service, determine how it affects prospects on a personal and emotional level, and then use those things to define your product’s promise.

When it comes to articulating your product’s promise, it can be easy to slip into hard-selling. What does “hard selling” mean? Here are some examples: Blabbering on about your company’s history and awards; lecturing your clients about your latest products and services; name-dropping all of the important people working for and with your company without sharing anything about yourself as a person. Basically, hard-selling makes it all about you, you, you. Don’t do it!

You have to make it about them! Show your prospects that you care about helping them do things better or improve areas of their lives.

Let them talk. Ask them questions about their lives, preferences, achievements, and dreams. Use conversation to offer advice and share your company’s vision of the future before you recommend any of your products or services. Pay attention to what the customer talks about, and tweak your responses according to their answers.

Remember, there are two sides to every purchase! You are only one-half of the equation.

2. Highlight How Awesome Your Product/Service Is

What does your product or service do for people? We bet it does amazing things! Maybe you’re a superstar accountant who specializes in scoring big tax returns for all your clients, or maybe you’re a social media whiz that can whip up new followers like they’re going out of style.

Know what the specific problem is that you will be solving for your customers or clients, and then use that to create content! Try using attention catching headlines. You could also make cool videos that explain how your product can solve specific issues, and feature them on your website, blog, and social media pages.

When your customers see exactly how your product or service can help solve their problems (and it’s shown to them in a way that’s non-invasive), you’ll hardly have to work to convince them to buy from you.

3. Focus on Benefits First, Then on Features

You might be sitting there thinking, “what’s the difference between a benefit and a feature?” Simply put, benefits are the results provided from a product or service, while features focus on the facts of a product or service.

For instance, here at Any Old Task, we help entrepreneurs save their time (benefit) by providing them with online business management and virtual assistant services (feature). This isn’t our actual slogan, but you get the picture!

Overall, the value to your potential customers is in the outcomes of using your product or service… that is, the benefits. But here’s the thing: The less expertise your customer has, the more you need to sell benefits. The more expertise they have, the more you need to sell features.

Have you ever had someone tell you a bunch of things you already knew? Boring! This is how many experts feel when salespeople only sell them the benefits. For example, say you’re trying to sell a graphics card to a gamer. They likely already know that a powerful graphics card makes the gaming experience more fun. Thus, talking about the graphics card in detail, outlining all of its features, would be more beneficial to an expert gamer than talking about the benefits of the graphics card alone.

Then there’s the opposite situation: Have you ever had someone talk way over your head about something they’re trying to sell you? Imagine a first-time computer buyer comparing CPUs and hard drives. This novice needs someone to translate features into benefits in order for them to feel confident making a purchase. The less they hear about details they don’t understand, the better. Instead, they’d rather hear how the product is going to improve their lives.

This goes back to rule #1: Let your customer talk. That’s the only way you can figure out if they’re an expert or a novice. If you’re still not sure, a great rule of thumb is to sell the feature differentiation and then translate that to benefits. Most customers love this approach because they can learn about new features and those features’ associated benefits.

4. Keep Your Message Consistent

Whether or not you’re an Apple fan, you can’t deny that they understand how to communicate their products’ value! For instance, take a look at the iPad’s slogan: “A better way to experience web, email, photos and video.” Not only does this slogan concisely summarize why using an iPad will help Apple’s target audience, but on their website, Apple goes on to further explain how their product will help their customers, rewording the same points over and over again.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel… just be consistent with your messaging! Highlight your product’s features and benefits in detail in your copy after your slogan or headline, and whenever you talk about your product or service, focus on its promise. People have too much to remember on a day-to-day basis, so keep it consistent but appealing, and your offering will stick in their heads better.

5. Build Credibility by Showcasing Proof

Do your clients or customers love your product or service? Of course, they do! A great way to communicate value to prospects is by showing off how much you’ve already transformed the lives of your current customers.

Never underestimate the power of a good review or testimonial! Through an appropriate venue, ask some of your clients to detail why they absolutely LOVED your product or service, and feature their testimonials on your website, in your newsletter, and/or in your marketing materials.

How exactly you go about collecting these testimonials is up to you (e.g. emailing specific clients directly, putting a shout-out on social media, opening up your business page to reviews on social media, etc.), but no matter how you do it, these testimonials can be powerful tools in converting potential customers to actual customers.

And don’t forget about business-to-business testimonials! If any other business that has used your products or services might have nice things to say about you, don’t neglect to ask for a little write-up (you could even offer to do the same for them if the feeling was mutual).

Pro Tip: To catch the eyes of readers who like to skim, put the important parts of your testimonials in bold as a way to emphasize them.

6. Think outside of the box

It’s important to think hard about the benefits your product or service brings to your clients but it’s also important to get creative and think outside the box! So don’t be afraid to try new things. For example, I personally abandoned my old “save you time” slogan and moved on to “help you bring your genius to the world.” Why? Because that was more in line with what my target audience wants. Yes – they want time but the reason they want time is so they can focus on growing their business.

When talking with a potential client I emphasize that we don’t just “save them time by doing all the things”; we offer support – a place they can go to ask questions and get answers; where they can get help determining their next steps and what needs to be done to reach their goals. Most important of all we help manage everything so they can free up their brain space to focus on what they do best – grow their business.

So, there you have it! Now, we aren’t going to tell you that communicating the value of your brand is easy as pie. It takes time, research, and a well-thought-out plan. But once you understand how to do it, it will go a lot smoother… and be much more effective, too!

We’d love to hear how you communicate your value to your clients. What makes you “the one” in the eyes of your clients? Tell us in the comments below.