Introduction
Okay, so you’ve been through the insight gathering phase and you have built a solid and robust base through the 3Cs building perspectives from talking to customers, reviewing competitors and assessing your own capability strengths and weaknesses. You’ve [LINK] synthesised [LINK] all of this rich data into insights that will drive your proposition messaging. Now is the time to turn insight into stories, developing a perfect proposition.
Designing your perfect proposition
Starting with the insights gathered in the synthesis stage, you’ll now review and use them as inspiration for new ideas for your proposition. Use the opportunity to ideate (creatively generate or brainstorm) several different options that might form the lead messaging. Your insights will have already surfaced several things you can say about your business or product, but don’t just be led by these. Now is the time to think a little more indirectly at the challenge and come up with new ideas.
Think about the different ways you could position and address the needs of your target customer given what you now know.
Here’s some questions we use to prompt your thinking:
- What need do we deliver extremely well on and customers say they come to us for? Can this be the lead of our proposition?
- Can we cluster a couple of similar customer needs (that we deliver well on) that we can position around in a new, slightly different or less ‘common’ way?
- How would we position into the whitespace identified in our competitor lens? If we leant into this space, would it address key customer needs? (Don’t do this if the whitespace matches a gap in customer needs – there is not likely to be a market. They are gaps for a reason.)
- What needs, if we delivered slightly better on in the near future, would open up a new way of talking about ourselves?
- How is all of this articulated in the language of benefits to your customer?
Use these questions along with all the insight you’ve gathered to generate several ideas for your proposition. At this stage don’t pre-judge, remember quantity over quality as you come up with ideas.
Once you have a bank of ideas you can use the same cluster and theming step we outlined in a previous stage to remove duplicates or cluster supporting ideas into new combinations. This will give you a list of potential options.
DO BE CAREFUL about over-clustering, many try to cram all the interesting ideas into one ‘mega- proposition’. We’ll talk a little more about this shortly.
How do you know if it’s a separate option?
Each proposition option you cluster should clearly articulate why your target customers should choose your offerings over others.
For example, if you were targeting high-growth start-ups and had identified unique customer service capabilities and capacity vs the market. One option might be to lead the proposition with the speed and agility of service to meet the changing and dynamic nature of a start-ups growth journey. However, another option might be to focus on the need to defend against the high probability of failure founders experience. The lead for this option might be to emphasise the predictability of the support available to accelerate growth when things are going well but, more importantly, provide the comfort that the help will be there when inevitable challenges of an entrepreneurial business arise. You can see how each of these options responds to the target customer needs but they have clear daylight between them.
Another acid test for having different options is to ask yourself (and the team), would each option lead to a different position in the mind’s eye of the customer, would they lead to different marketing messages, and would each option drive different actions internally to execute the proposition? If the answer is yes to these questions, you likely have different options rather than different versions of the same option.
At this stage, it is a simple 1-page articulation (keep it simple, just words, no pictures), to outline:
- The lead message – articulate the core idea of your proposition in a short sentence or two explaining who you help [Target Customer], with what need or problem [Need], in a way that is unique or distinctive to you [Capability], to deliver tangible benefits to the customer [Outcome]. Think of this as the foundation for THE thing you want people to remember you for if this was your proposition in the market today. Use clear, practical, to-the- point language, not clever marketing speak or buzzwords. That can come later although we would encourage avoiding this even at the ‘creative execution’ stage.
Remember, the objective for now is to create a proposition that will then inform future marketing creative and sales collateral. We aren’t creating those things yet.
- Sub-messages (or pillars) – the distinctive elements you want to deliver as part of this proposition. These should be aligned with the critical customer needs you are addressing, and the benefits customers will realise by using you. At this stage, you may also want to capture some high-level capabilities that demonstrate how you deliver this better than others.
Recommended Reading: Beyond Taglines: What Is A Proposition Statement & Why will It Make or Break Your Business?
One or many? Is there such a thing as a perfect Proposition?
As mentioned, this is the messiest step in the whole process. If you are lucky, it may be obvious what the proposition is from the insight you gathered. This is rare. Most of the time, you’ll find numerous directions the business can take. We tend to worry if there is only one (have we thought about this hard enough?) or if there are too many options (more than 5, are they detailed enough or distinct enough?). If it’s the former, stretch your thinking. Maybe bring in 2 or 3 more people to help you develop new ideas or ways of looking at the proposition. If it’s the latter, look at where overlaps and duplications exist. Are they really different options or just a slightly different way of articulating it? Dedupe, rewrite until you have a manageable number of options.
Take your time.
As this activity is the least formulaic step, it can vary in length to complete. Our advice, give it time, consider the insight from different angles, and get other perspectives. And just like with insight synthesis, ideally this is not a one-person job.
Once complete you now have a set of 2-5 proposition options articulated. All are still in the early thinking stage but are now formed enough to test and validate both internally and externally.
Think in terms of a tree – use a tree diagram to map out your messaging for each proposition. Sometimes this is called a ‘messaging house’.
Be bold and have the courage to choose ONE overarching umbrella message for the business unit / service line / product. Then select no less than 3 and no more than 5 ‘core messages’ or pillars that deliver the key points you want to land in the eyes of customers and that ladder up to the umbrella statement. It’s these pillars that you support with the proof points gathered when talking to customers and exploring capability within the organisation.
“As this activity is the least formulaic step, it can vary in length to complete.
Testing your proposition options with customers
Validating your proposition options with a small group of target customers will provide critical insights into the proposition’s relevance to them and the differentiation they see to the rest of the market. Here you want to try and reconnect with 3-5 customers from the first phase, talk through the options you have and get them to share their thoughts:
- Which option resonates the most (and why)
- Which options don’t?
- What option feels like it would be delivered well by your organisation?
- What option feels like it should be delivered by another player?
- What would they add, remove or improve to make it more compelling?
At this stage, try to avoid cosmetics and overly wordsmithing. It’s about testing the core concept of the proposition and the pillars you will focus on. It’s your opportunity to refine and evolve the proposition with the opinion of what matters most, your target customer.
Can you get to the heart of why MANY customers buy from you? I use ‘many’ very specifically, you’ll always find examples of other reasons customers buy from you. If we try to squeeze in every reason possible you’ll end up with a very generic proposition; we make cars for people who drive cars.
“At this stage, try to avoid cosmetic wordsmithing.
Prioritising the Perfect Proposition
This is now the time we look to prioritise. Often this can be very clear from the insight, often you can get a very strong steer from customers in your validation testing BUT… not always. Sometimes you’ll still have 2 or 3 options that make sense, deliver well against strongly felt needs and tested well. This is the time you earn your salary as leaders of your organisation.
Working with the proposition owners, this might be an individual but usually it’s a small team. For brand level proposition work, it can be the whole Executive team. Who ever the team/individual is making the decision there are a range of tools and techniques available but above all the key is not to try and make it feel falsely scientific.
At this stage, even though we’ve talked about the ‘perfect proposition’ there are often no right or wrong answers, all the options you have will likely resonate well with more than enough customers to grow your business. Perfect for you and your business is also about choosing the route that makes sense to you and your team, the route you believe in. You’re going to be delivering and working on the proposition for a few years to come, so it needs to be something you are happy with.
A couple of tools or methods we have used with a lot of success is pairwise ranking if making decisions within a small team or bubble sort if making decisions within a larger group like an Executive team.
A final watch out here, don’t just smash all options together. Although parts of propositions can be combined, don’t be tempted to bundle everything together to appeal to everyone. This activity really is about clarity of choice given everything that has been learnt and explored. Trying to satisfy everyone by creating a monster ‘one proposition to rule them all’ usually means complexity, confusion and a proposition that is likely to appeal to no one.
Conclusion
So now you have it, the perfect proposition for your business. One that you are confident will resonate with customer, one that is somewhat unique in the market and one that you can authentically deliver as a business and believe in as a leadership team.
At this stage you have a high level value proposition statement and ideas for the propositional pillars, the next stage is fleshing them out, building in evidence and outlining a roadmap to implement in your marketing and sales efforts as well as improve product and service delivery.
