How to Create a Strong Content Marketing Strategy Using Your UVP

Thanks you to Cuttles.io for being a guest author on our blog.

In a fast-moving, innovative, and highly competitive world, it’s essential to stand out with a great unique value proposition. Small businesses and startups take their competition seriously and create content like crazy to be top-of-mind. 

Well-written blog posts, subtitled videos, and videos are produced in bulk in the quest to optimise SEO and dazzle consumers on social media. Content marketing is the most commonly used branding strategy for new businesses to establish their unique value proposition, and for a good reason. It’s highly efficient when you get it right, but, unfortunately, equally expensive and time-consuming when you don’t.

One good piece of advice? Get your message right! ‍

In this article, we’ll take you through the three simple steps of creating a strong unique value proposition (UVP) to serve as the core message of your communications, and thereby strengthening your brand value.

A UVP is a clear and concise statement of what sets you apart from the competition and makes you unique. 

Your unique value proposition is the three simple sentences (or less) that make it crystal clear for your audience WHY they should choose you, and it can serve an even bigger purpose of aligning your team’s communication and making your content marketing more impactful. Sounds like a piece of cake, right? Well, we have a surprise for you. It’s quite the challenge!

Creating a strong unique value proposition is the first step to take when settling on a marketing strategy. As a small business owner, you probably already know that what you’re selling isn’t a product –it's the solution your product brings; the value.  

How to make a Unique Value Proposition?

Identifying your unique value proposition is not rocket science but it does take you and your team’s efforts to clear about your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to communicating with your customers. And speaking of customers, that leads us to the first of three steps:

Step one: Who are your customers?

When we’re talking about value, it’s crucial to know whom you’re offering the value. Probably, your customers, right? If you’re not an expert on who you’re selling to, now is the time to get to know them. When defining your customers to identify your unique value proposition, it’s essential to split your customers into segments of demographics, psychographics, and behaviour. The latter being very important when knowing how you’re creating value in their lives. ‍

How does your product add value to their lives?

When you know exactly who your customers are and how they live their life, it’s time to discover how your product makes their lives better. Are they becoming richer, faster, better, or more successful because of your solution? Begin your unique value proposition by making a list of all the ways you and your business solve their pains or make their lives better.

Step two: Who are your competitors, and how are you different than them?

Now it’s time to emphasise the “unique” in “Unique Value Proposition” because let’s face it– if you’re not better than your competitors, you’ll have a hard time competing. 

So, you’ve made a list of all of the good reasons for buying your product. Now do the same with your competitors. Chances are that your competitors’ lists are overlapping a lot of the values on your unique value proposition list. But no need to worry! After crossing out the overlapping values, what’s left on your list is the unique value proposition you offer.

Step Three: Make a statement!

To the hour of truth: create a convincing unique value proposition statement that will clarify both to your customers and coworkers what you do better than anyone else. Be creative!

A great example is Weebly’s that goes like this:

“Websites, eCommerce & Marketing in one place. So you can focus on what you love.”

Simply, it tells their customers what they do and that the unique value proposition is the time it creates for more important things. 

Another great example is Evernote's:

“Remember Everything. Modern life can be complicated. Simplify it with Evernote. The app to manage it all”.  

Every woman wants to become an “I-don’t-know-how-she-does-it” girl. And that’s exactly what Evernote offers with their unique value proposition composed of no more than 17 words. 

Step Four: Create great content!

When you’ve made your unique value proposition statement, you’re ready to create convincing content that will differentiate you in your market as the better choice. Your unique value proposition should be the foundation of every blog post, video, and any other type of content, so every member of your team will get the right message out there, and maximize your brand value.

The next step is to maximise the engagement on your content by optimising it for the platforms you're posting on through resizing content, adding subtitles, and translating if you're looking to reach international markets, too. A strong content marketing strategy starts with a strong unique value proposition and ends with a strong delivery of that value!

Have these through every piece of content, so that your customers will have no doubt of the value you’re able to bring to their lives. 

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That was the simple 4-step recipe. Now there’s nothing left to but get into the creative mindset, and create your own.

And remember that a unique value proposition is not set in stone, but quite the opposite should be evaluated and re-created as your product and the market changes. When Apple introduced the iPhone, its uniqueness consisted in the technology, features, and possibilities. But as the rest of the market developed the same features, their core competencies became design and image. From offering value in the form of options to offering value in the form of social status.

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Thanks to Cuttles.io for being a guest writer on our blog. You can find out more about Cuttles.io and building a unique value proposition for your business on their website.

‍Start optimising your content for the web with translations, and subtitles!