The value proposition “why” — why should customers choose your product — can be answered in 100 different ways. But how do you determine the most effective answer?
Often, it is determined in a conference room with a rigorous debate amongst leaders and experts. But experts do not have the answers to this question — only your customers do. So, we turned to the customer to answer this question by conducting an experiment with a global news distributor.
EXPERIMENT
In the five-minute video below, Flint McGlaughlin explains how determining the best expression of value generated a 22% increase in conversions, and an important learning.
Let’s take a closer look at the experiments featured in this video …
THE CONTROL
This global news distributor came to the research team at MECLABS Institute, the parent company of marketing experiments,
with the goal of determining which element of their value proposition was most appealing to their customers.
So, they developed three different articulations of their core offer, using the homepage to test which one will have the most impact on conversions.
TREATMENTS
Treatment 1 tested a hypothesis that the group’s authority was the most appealing element of their offer, using phrases like “For almost 60 years,” “inventing the industry” and “most authoritative source of news.” Each of these points serves to foster a conclusion in the mind of the customer about the authority of this organization.
Treatment 2 had a different hypothesis, challenging the idea that the group’s comprehensive network was more appealing than any other element. This hypothesis was supported with phrases like “over 200,000 media outlets,” “hundreds of thousands of journalists,” “170 different countries” and “most comprehensive media network in the world.”
Finally, Treatment 3 argued that the group’s superior customer service was the most important element to its customers. Like the other treatments, this version used key supporting phrases like “exceptional customer service,” “work personally … one-on-one,” “200,000 errors caught each year” and “available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
RESULTS
In the end, the treatment focused on the organization’s authority, and experiments outperformed all other treatments with 26% more conversions. While the conversion lift itself was impactful for this organization, the approach to achieving it is what provided the most valuable learning.
The team not only determined the best articulation of their value proposition, they learned that clearly displaying the right value proposition articulation can maximize the force of your offer. And in order to uncover what is right for YOUR customers, marketers must engage in a mental dialogue. People don’t want to be talked at; they want to be communicated with. The marketer asks questions with their message, and the customer answers with their behavioral data.
RELATED RESOURCES
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