Following setting goals, identifying your ideal client, and narrowing your niche, defining your core value is the next step in crafting an effective marketing strategy.
“Defining your core value” sounds like a very *buzzy* business phrase, the kind of marketing jargon that can sometimes be off-putting.
But rather than more fluffy, meaningless language, your Core Value is central to why your business, and the services you provide, matter to your ideal clients.
How Do You Define Your Core Value?
Start by answering a couple of crucial questions:
What benefits do your services provide?
If you’re a real estate agent, your specialized knowledge helps clients find their ideal homes.
What needs do your services fulfill?
If you’re a Wills + Trusts attorney, you draft a will or set up a trust that protects the future of your client’s family.
What problems do you solve for your ideal clients?
If you’re a CPA, you help clients reduce their taxable income and save BIG $$$ on their annual tax returns.
Why is Defining Your Core Value Important?
This clarification is CRITICAL to your marketing efforts for a couple of reasons.
First, business owners often can’t clearly define why what they do has value or how that value serves their clients.
Secondly, even if business owners are clear on the value they provide, they haven’t thought through and articulated this value in a clear and concise fashion. And that leaves you fumbling when prospects ask how your services can help them.
And finally, the lack of a clear value proposition can result in marketing messaging that fails to persuade prospects because while your messaging might say WHAT you do, it doesn’t define how it BENEFITS your prospects.
A Quick Case Study
Let’s say your CPA. At the most basic level, you prepare people’s income taxes. And while that’s something everyone needs, not everyone turns to a CPA to get their taxes done.
So, why, then, turn to a CPA? And more specifically, why turn to you?
This is where you highlight the tax savings and audits-avoidance working with a CPA can provide. And where you underscore your specific experience in helping clients save big on their income taxes while avoiding IRS inquiries.
In short, illustrating your Core Value is about thinking beyond the nuts and bolts of what you actually do and focusing on the benefits your services provide.
What Do You Do With Answers to Your Core Value Questions?
Once you formulate answers to these questions, write them out as a USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
If you’re not familiar, a USP is a brief statement that defines:
Who you are — A realtor, accountant, attorney, etc…
What you do — Find or sell homes, prepare taxes, draft wills + trusts, etc…
And why it matters to your ideal clients — Wins your dream home, saves you money, protects your family’s future.
Usually in three sentences or less.
And once drafted, make your USP the central piece of your marketing messaging:
- Put it on the Home page of your website.
- Use it for every short bio of your business — On your social media profiles, at the bottom of your eNewsletter, under the About Us header, and as your accompanying bio with every press release.
- Share it in every meeting with prospects, whether in answer to a casual “so, what do you do for work?” question or a formal client pitch meeting.
Need help marketing your business?
Let’s discuss:
- Launching or updating your website
- Improving your website’s SEO by starting a business blog
- Launching an email newsletter or other keep-in-touch campaigns
- Increasing your online presence with social media marketing campaigns
- Launching a PR campaign to gain media attention for your business
Sound like a plan?
Get in touch here: 310.466.7893 | ryan@ryananys.com