A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is essential for your business, not only to help you precisely define your business to your customers and yourself but also incredibly necessary in helping to fine tune your marketing strategies and optimization program. If you don’t know your UVP or it’s below par, you don’t know your business-and if you don’t know your business, your seriously harming it’s potential.

First, repeat these words to yourself and focus on what each word means; Unique…Value…Proposition.

Unique- being the only one, being without a like or equal (Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unique)

Value- relative worth, utility, or importance (Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/value)

Proposition – something offered for consideration or acceptance (Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proposition)

What does your business offer of relative worth, utility or importance to its customers without a like or equal from others (your competitors do not/cannot).

A UVP clearly states the reason why customers should do business with you. Most likely there are other businesses (those who you consider your competitors or not) who offer the same product, a similar service, the same information, the same or similar whatever, and therefore your unique value proposition separates you from the herd of “sames” and “similars”. It explains why customers should do business with you and not the “them”.  Furthering the “without-a-doubt” reason that the customer must give you the money in exchange for what you are offering rather than someone else.

But be careful, because a Unique Value Proposition isn’t:

• What you hope your business will be (i.e., We are going to be the best xyz in the world)
• What you wish it to be (i.e., Our goal is to be the #1 xyz, or the most referenced xyz, etc.)
• What you say you are (i.e., We are the #1 xyz in the state),

Instead, a UVP clearly states what your business is, and what your business does – what you are truly offering to your customers.

Marketing Experiments suggests in their In Search of a Value Proposition article to:

“Ask yourself why someone should buy from you instead of a competitor. If your answer is “best selection,” “best customer service,” or “fast shipping,” you potential success may be quite limited. These qualities do not make a business unique.”

Here are a few examples of how you can improve your Unique Value Proposition:

1. Original UVP: We install widget weasels that save you money.
   Improved UVP: As the only licensed widget weasel implementation provider in the tri-state area, we have saved our clients on average over $125,000 on maintenance problems due to faulty implementations.
2. Original UVP: We offer the smallest time travel unit in the world.
   Improved UVP: We are the only pocket-sized time-travel unit provider in the world for those who want to time travel but don’t have the room or budget for a full-sized machine.

You’ll want to include your company’s Unique Value Proposition throughout your website and test the most effective way to present it. According to FutureNow/GrokDotCom’s Landing Pages & the Value of First Impressions blog post, “The UVP is your site’s first chance to begin a dialogue with its visitors.” Enough said.

Want to learn more about writing Unique Value Propositions? Check out:

• Marketing Experiments $100,000 UVP Challenge – In Search of a Value Proposition
  

• Bruce Mayhew Consulting’s  Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

• Your Unique Value Proposition at Summit Insight Blog
• Landing Pages & the Value of First Impressions by FutureNow/Grokdotcom