Value Proposition: Marketing examples for each of the 4 essential levels of value prop
December 16, 2020 by Daniel Burstein, Senior
Director, Content & Marketing, MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute
|
SUMMARY: The
value proposition is not just the responsibility of the CEO. Because
for truly effective marketing, value communication must happen at many
levels. To
inspire your own value-infused marketing, here are examples from Montefiore
Health System, a digital marketing agency, real estate brokerage, and online
high school. |
|
This article was originally
published in the MarketingSherpa email newsletter.
When many marketers hear
the term value proposition, they think of one all-encompassing thing – the
overall value proposition of the company. If you think of value prop that way,
it can be easy to feel like you have no say or control.
However, the value
proposition isn’t just one big thing, it is a spectrum, according to MECLABS
Institute’s methodology (MECLABS is the parent organization of
MarketingSherpa). There are four essential levels of value
proposition on that spectrum:
·
The Primary Value Prop – This is the overall value proposition of
the company
·
The Prospect-Level Value Prop – You need a value proposition for
each prospect type your company serves
·
The Product-Level Value Prop – You need a value proposition for
each product your company sells
·
The Process-Level Value Prop – You need a value proposition for
each action you ask potential customers to take
In this article, we’ll give
you an example of how marketers like you handled each level of value prop.
Quick
Case Study #1: Online high school better communicates its primary value prop
with longer page, increases conversion 32%
An online high school
partnered with MECLABS Institute to determine how to
increase the conversion rate on its website.
Like many brands, the
company focused on having a short mobile page, thinking that visitors would not
care to read something too long. (It should be noted, when this experiment was
shared in How to Amplify the Power of Your Value
Proposition, some attendees thought this relatively page should have
even less copy).
Creative Sample #1:
Original (control) mobile webpage for online high school (has been anonymized)
The MECLABS team
hypothesized that page length wasn’t the issue, but rather value communication.
They created a webpage that more thoroughly communicated the primary value proposition of
the online high school. In so doing, they created a webpage that was
significantly longer.
Creative Sample #2: New
(treatment) mobile webpage for online high school (has been anonymized)
The MECLABS team conducted
an experiment, running the original (control) and new (treatment) landing pages
against each other in an A/B split test. By intensifying the force of the value
proposition on the page, the treatment drove a 32% relative increase in
conversion.
You can learn more about
this experiment in How to Amplify the Power of Your Value
Proposition from MarketingExperiments (MarketingSherpa’s sister
publication).
Quick
Case Study #2: Montefiore Health System generates 2.2 billion impressions by
communicating prospect-level value propositions during Covid-19 pandemic
It’s easy to forget that
our company’s homepage is a vital, real-time communication mechanism. To use a
brick-and-mortar analogy, it should be less like a bank façade – stolid and
granite – and more like a roadside stand where signs for “fresh and juicy
peaches” give way to “homemade apple pie” as the seasons change.
But during the start of the
pandemic – and still today – I was shocked by how many homepages made no
reference to Covid-19. If you looked at the homepage for many companies in industries
hard-hit by the pandemic – like travel and tourism – you would think nothing
had changed. But in reality, many current and potential customers visiting
those sites likely wondered how the pandemic would affect their use of that
product. They had new anxieties; anxieties that were being ignored.
For a golden lesson in how
to react to a massive jolt to society, let’s take a look at a company that was
in the eye of the storm in the early days of the pandemic – Montefiore
Health System. The hospital system’s team had three prospect-level value propositions it
needed to communicate: to inform patients with Covid-19 that it could help
them, to inform patients without Covid-19 that it was still open for their
needs as well and could keep them safe from Covid-19, and to let employees know
they are valued.
“As the pandemic rapidly
spread throughout New York, completely shutting down the state and life as we
traditionally knew it, we had to transform our website and quickly build a
Covid-19 platform that would help service patients’ questions and concerns,”
said Loreen Babcock, CMO, Montefiore Health System.
This was a new and
unprecedented challenge and the team needed to move quickly to communicate with
their community. They mobilized all resources – including agency partners and
consultants – and built a Covid-19 microsite in
both English and Spanish featuring Covid-19 visitor policies, FAQs (frequently
asked questions), a hotline, online doctor’s visits, a news hub, and a
gratitude page with a live social media feed.
Creative Sample #3:
Hospital’s Covid-19 microsite
The home page featured a
prominent link to the microsite.
Creative Sample #4:
Hospital homepage with link to Covid-19 microsite
The microsite included
essential information to inform the community about Covid-19, but it also
included information for patients who did not have Covid-19 but wanted to know
the hospital’s procedures for avoiding the spread of the coronavirus while they
were treated for other ailments at the hospital.
Creative Sample #5:
Hospital’s COVID-SAFE Care webpage
Herein lies a great lesson
for every marketer – how can you clearly communicate the impact of the pandemic
(or other newsworthy events) on the use of your products and services
specifically? What is the prospect-level value proposition during this
difficult time for each prospect type (which can include different customer
segments, but also partners, distributors, retailers, vendors, employees,
regulators, etc.)? And how can you reduce customer anxiety with information
about steps your company is taking to reduce health, financials, and other
risks for customers?
Montefiore-Einstein was
featured prominently in news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic as a major
treatment center filled with Covid-19 patients. Without clear information about
the procedures in place to avoid spread of the novel coronavirus, potential
patients for other procedures and treatments might be unsure if it was safe for
them to book an appointment…or if the hospital was even treating other
conditions at the time.
In addition to being
featured prominently on the Covid-19 microsite, the COVID-SAFE Care page was
linked to from an alert bar at the top of every page of the website, including
the homepage, so if potential patients had any questions or anxiety about Covid-19
transmission during their treatment they could easily find information before
they booked an appointment. They could also clearly see that all locations were
open, the hospital system is currently booking appointments, and that they
could even choose a doctor video visit if they preferred to not make an
in-person appointment.
Creative Sample #6:
COVID-SAFE Care alert bar at the top of hospital website
In addition to the Covid-19
and non-Covid-19 patient audiences, the hospital system had an audience of
employees – the healthcare workers treating patients and putting their lives at
risk during the pandemic.
“Montefiore-Einstein
believes the time for tribute is now. Not later. The time for inspiration and
recognition is now. And it’s forever. This is a very significant healthcare
crisis. But the significance of what every healthcare worker does for New York
City and the world, so selflessly, continually, cannot be overstated,” Babcock
said.
The microsite included a
gratitude section honoring these modern-day heroes with modern-day art.
Creative Sample #7:
Gratitude section of hospitals’ Covid-19 microsite
“The current outpouring of
appreciation for New York’s healthcare workers has been truly humbling. Our
community’s grace and optimism in the face of hardship inspires us every day.
So many have cheered and honored our heroes, through letters, drawings, art,
videos, deliveries (food, donations, etc.) and are giving to support our
Covid-19 efforts, Montefiore-Einstein thanks them by highlighting their efforts
through this page,” Babcock told me. “It’s another way for our healthcare
heroes to see the endless gratitude folks continue to send them, keeping them
motivated every single day.”
The communication was a
two-way street. Not only did Babcock’s team facilitate communication to healthcare
workers, it used its social media channels to communicate from healthcare
workers as well.
The Stay Strong video
series offered guidance from Montefiore-Einstein experts on Covid-19 topics
like symptoms, testing, treatment, handwashing, elderly care and family care.
The video series garnered tens of thousands of views on the microsite and the
Montefiore-Einstein YouTube channel with, for example, a Spanish-language video
about Covid-19 symptoms garnering 46,044 views as of the writing of this
article.
Beyond the communication of
information, the hospital’s social media channels also communicated the sheer
humanity of the situation. For example, a video of Montefiore-Einstein’s nurses
dancing to celebrate a patient taken off a ventilator. “This video includes the
theme song selected by Montefiore-Einstein to play during the height of
Covid-19 (‘Empire State of Mind’) each time a patient was taken off a
ventilator. This video has reached nearly 500,000 people (organic) on social,
was included in Alicia Keys tribute video on BET, and was tweeted by Alicia
Keys as well,” Babcock said.
Creative Sample #8: Social
media video of nurses celebrating when a Covid-19 patient is taken off a
ventilator
Appreciation for healthcare
workers wasn’t limited to the microsite. Montefiore-Einstein collaborated with
artist Tristan Eaton on a large-scale mural along New York’s “Canyon of Heroes”
that captured the nurses’ heroism. The team used the Canyon of Heroes theme in
a video that has garnered 5,189,282 views on YouTube as of the writing of this
article.
“Right now, we cannot come
together to celebrate in public,” Babcock said. “We can’t throw a true
ticker-tape parade – but we can throw one digitally.”
Creative Sample #9: Video
from hospital thanking nurses for their service
The campaign included
a Nurses are Heroes website that leverage
Eaton’s artwork and allowed visitors to create their own custom hero image.
The entire integrated
campaign – including Montefiore-Einstein’s Nurses Week Mural, “Canyon of
Heroes” video, Covid-19 microsite/gratitude page, and Covid-19 patient
discharge videos has garnered more than 2.2 billion impressions across print,
digital, broadcast, out-of-home, and social (both paid and organic). The
campaign has received media coverage from Adweek, NPR (National Public Radio),
GMA (Good Morning America), The Washington Post, The Daily News, Bloomberg, and
other media outlets.
“We believe, and we’ve
heard, that these campaigns resonate with New Yorkers in ways we never
imagined. That they’re experiences, not just commercials, not just ads. They
reverberate. Allowing us to all share in the triumph over adversity even
through lockdown, through quarantine,” Babcock said.
“Challenge marketing
strategy and channels as you have known it. Be brave about resisting
conventional marketing practices, and above all, show your authenticity,” she
advised other marketers.
Quick
Case Study #3: Digital marketing agency gets 18% more leads by communicating
product-level value prop through case studies
“You need to experiment a
lot before finding what works for you by putting yourself in your customer’s
shoes – just like you mentioned in your Visualizing the Conversion Journey blog
post,” Stewart Dunlop, CEO, LinkBuilder.io told
me.
When he put himself in his
customers’ shoes, he realized they wanted detailed examples of his services in
action to understand his product-level value proposition,
so he added case studies of existing customers to his website.
“We compiled the success
stories indicating the client’s industry, their goals, and our strategy
including illustrative materials – like screenshots from Google Analytics,
Ahrefs, Pitchbox, etc. – and published them dedicating a separate menu block on
the main page,” Dunlop said.
After publishing the case
studies, the number of inquiries increased by 18%. When discussing the projects
on the first call, clients often referred to these case studies saying that
they want to achieve something similar.
“Make sure that the client
is fine that you are sharing the results publicly, otherwise, there’s a risk of
losing reputation. Include goals, challenges, and the strategies you used to
solve them. Avoid generic info, use numbers to inspire trust, and get attention,”
Dunlop advised.
Quick
Case Study #4: Gift card increases referral rate from 1.4x to 2.3x for real
estate brokerage by creating a process-level value prop
One of the most successful
marketing tactics for Felix Homes has been focusing on the last
stage of the customer journey – creating a process-level value proposition that
encourages current and former clients to tell their friends and family about
the business.
“If you offer a product or
service that provides value, this word of mouth should come pretty naturally,”
said Tyler Forte, CEO, Felix Homes. Still, the team explored if there was a way
to encourage this natural referral behavior in a way that reliably impacted its
growth. They tested different ideas such as a thoughtful closing gift, an
Amazon gift card if the customer shared their review on social media, and even
a coupon that they could give to a friend or family member for $250 off their
listing fee.
The best-performing tactic
was having clients share a review on social media. “After all, word of mouth
can also take a digital form on Facebook through friends sharing helpful tips
and recommended companies in addition to cat memes and pictures of your
nephew’s birthday,” Forte said.
Before they provided past
customers with any incentive, the real estate brokerage was already getting
organic referrals. For every one client, the client would refer 1.4 new
clients. Once they implemented a way to incentivize clients to be advocates,
they got 2.3 new clients in return for every client.
“The best advice I have for
any marketers looking to start a referral program is to never underestimate the
power of a few things $20 Amazon gift card,” Forte said.
Related
resources
MECLABS Institute Value Proposition
Development online certification course – Learn how to clearly
communicate an effective value proposition
Value Force: How to win on value
proposition and not just price
7 Steps to Discovering Your Essential
Value Proposition with Simple A/B Tests
No comments:
Post a Comment