Create Your Unique Value Proposition

Last Updated May 02, 2017

Arriving at your site for the first time a guest should know immediately understand who you are, what you do, and why they want to pay for your experience. Known as your unique value proposition, this single sentence can affect up to 30% of conversions on your site. Today, we’re going to look at how you can write your own UVP.


EXERCISE

Step 1 – Explain what you do

If your grandmother were to ask, “what does your company do?” you wouldn’t tell her your company’s tagline and then expect her to want to go. Give people the information they need in as few words as possible.

If you’re a guided walking tour, say, “Guided walking tour”. If you’re a bike tour, say “Bike tour”. The purpose of this is to be as clear and concise as possible. We don’t want to use witty taglines or catch phrases — we’re trying to help someone understand what we do. We don’t want to use words that cause more questions. Someone arriving at your site may not know what “an elegant stroll” means, but they’ll know what a “guided walking tour” means.

Step 2 – Tell someone why they want to buy a ticket

While there are a multitude of reasons to purchase a ticket, let’s start by focusing on just one. This step says to tell someone “why” they want to buy from you, not “what they’re buying”. Your “why” should be a benefit of taking your tour, not a feature of your tour.

We find benefits by listing features and then understanding why that feature is important to someone. If your business were a food tour: a person wants to take your tour because they’ll stop at 6 different restaurants (feature/“what”).  This is important to them because they want to experience multiple restaurants in a short time.

Try running this “fill-in-the-blank” multiple times to uncover different benefits of taking your tour. Then choose the best one for your UVP. A person wants to attend my experience because _____(reason/feature)________. This is important to them because ____(the benefit)________.

Step 3 – Create your UVP

Take your answer from Step 1 and combine with Step 2 to create something along the lines of:  Guided walking tour to experience multiple restaurants in a short time.

Every few months, you want to refine your UVP. To do this, work on understanding your guests. Ask them why they are booking your experience and try to uncover the real reasons people are buying tickets.


EXAMPLES

BAD UVP: Meet chefs, taste local favorites, and learn about our history.
GOOD UVP: Guided walking tours to help you learn the best places to eat.
What do they do: Guided walking tours
Why you would take this tour: To learn the best places to eat

BAD UVP: Learn. Ride. Enjoy.
GOOD UVP: Guided minibus & electric bike tours to visit the most iconic sites of San Francisco in one day.
What do they do: Guided minibus & electric bike tours
Why you would take this tour: to see the most iconic sites of San Francisco in one day

BAD UVP: We don’t just feed you, you’ll also explore the city and learn its history
GOOD UVP: Walking tour with food tastings for a new experience that isn’t wine.
What do they do: Walking tour with food tastings
Why you would take this tour: for a new experience that isn’t wine  (This particular tour is located in a very wine-centric area. This operator knows what makes her tour different from others and makes that part of her UVP.)


JOE’S TIPS FOR A STRONG UVP

• Remove any words that could be confusing.

• Shorten your UVP. Then shorten it again.

• Write at a 7th grade reading level — keep it simple!

• Say your UVP out loud. If you were introducing yourself and your business to a room full of people you would say, “Hi I’m ________ and my company provides ____{your UVP}____. • Ask friends or family to describe what you do and see how they describe it.


 

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