Chapter 5
Value Proposition
So . . . what do you sell?
In the last chapter, we isolated the problem your product or service addresses. More importantly, we identified the pain caused by the problem. The people who experience that pain are your target market. They're the ones who are ready to spend money on your product or service. The next step is to identify and understand exactly what your product or service is. What do you sell? Specifically. Is it a silly question? Let's take a closer look.
Does Starbucks sell coffee? I would say no, not really. Starbucks sells an environment, an experience. When McDonald's introduced a variety of high-end coffees, were they really competing with Starbucks? No, they weren't. In fact, they didn't even pretend to compete.
McDonald's realized that some people go to Starbucks to buy fancy coffee but don't care about the Starbucks experience at all. If they could provide a similar product for less money, they could steal those customers. And they were right. But they never tried to compete with Starbucks' value proposition. McDonald's sells a few high-end coffees. Starbucks sells an experience. Two different things. The options appeal to two entirely different audiences. To that end, McDonald's specifically addressed the unpretentiousness of their specialty coffees in their advertising campaign.
If you really want to grow your business, you need to focus your marketing efforts on the customer experience, not your product's features. You don't sell ...
