What’s Your Value Proposition? Ask Your Customers

What’s Your Value Proposition? Ask Your Customers

Understanding the unique value your business delivers to customers is essential for a smart marketing strategy.

Yet many businesses struggle to define their value proposition, especially B2B marketers that sell intangible business services like legal services, accounting, benefits, IT services, and marketing services.

But defining your value proposition is easier than you think: Just ask your customers.  

Whenever I develop a marketing or branding strategy, I always conduct interviews with my client’s customers as part of the process. There’s simply no better way to understand why customers choose a supplier – and stay loyal to a supplier – than asking customers to describe it.

Of course, there’s more to customer interviewing than just picking up the phone. Important factors can make a big difference in the process and the outcome.

Customer interviews should be approached strategically. In part one of a two-part post, here’s how I recommend conducting customer interviews to determine a value proposition, from my experience as a marketing consultant.

How to Interview Your Customers About Your Value Proposition

• Which customers to interview: Talk with the customers you want to replicate, your true advocates. These customers understand and appreciate your value better than anyone else. Mix in a few customers who should be buying more from you but aren’t. The interview process can help identify value and performance gaps impacting your growth.
• How many customers to interview: In my experience, consistent themes begin to emerge fairly quickly in executive interviews. For small to mid-size companies, 10-15 customer interviews can be enough. Larger companies would want to talk with more customers. If you have very distinct market segments, consider 6-8 interviewees per segment.
• How to get customers to participate: Extend a personal invitation from the company president to selected customers. Follow up with an email to outline the process and introduce the interviewer, who will schedule the appointment. Some of my clients offer customers a thank-you gift for participation, such a gift certificate.
• How to conduct the interviews: Executive interviewing is best done one-on-one, by phone or in person, so interviewees can express their thoughts in their own words. Record interviews to capture answers verbatim, with the interviewee’s permission. Be respectful of their time and their opinions.
• Who should do the interviews: Customers will be more open and honest with an objective, independent interviewer who doesn’t have a stake in the outcome. Look for a marketing consultant with extensive executive interviewing experience, proven listening skills, and the knowledge to apply the results to a marketing and branding strategy.
• How to ask about the value proposition: I never flat-out ask a client’s customers to tell me the client’s value proposition. Unless they’re in marketing, most people don’t know or use that term. Instead, I explore the value the client provides from multiple angles, such as:
  • “What factors are most important to you when selecting a supplier of these types of products or services?”
  • “Of all the suppliers you could consider, what made you select Company X?”
  • “What factors do you think set Company X apart from other suppliers in your industry?”
  • “Why have you continued to work with Company X all these years?”
  • “What do you think Company X does best?”

Coming next: Part 2: 7 Ways to Use Value Proposition Insights in a Smart Marketing Strategy