Building a SaaS value proposition

Summary: Learn how to craft clear and impactful SaaS website value propositions by focusing on customer pain points and tangible benefits.

Main Body of Content:

Time and time again I land on B2B SaaS & tech websites and my first thought is… wtf do you do?

So let’s talk about your website value proposition. Value propositions are one of my favourite parts of marketing. The clue is in the name: value.

We’ve entered an era where ChatGPT is “elevating” lazy messaging. But before this, B2B has always suffered from trying to be too clever, being too broad, or the classic me, me, me syndrome. But the common theme is that B2B value propositions often lack the value.

I won’t labour over ChatGPT, but I will say it’s becoming increasingly obvious when you use it and don’t apply common sense or humanise it.

But let’s dive into the other areas that have always been a challenge for B2B SaaS & tech businesses

Trying to be too clever 😏

↳ I’m all for creative messaging (and as a marketer, I genuinely appreciate it), but if it comes at the cost of your message, it needs to get cut. A common culprit is “The x of tomorrow, today”.

↳ Start with writing out in layman’s terms what you do and the pain you solve. In my experience, that gets you 80% of the way there — Cognism’s is “We give you mobile phone numbers and B2B emails of people you want to do business with” — it’s a great example of something so simple, yet so clear — 0 fluff.

Being too broad 🤷‍♀️

↳ Don’t be everything to everyone, be something to someone. I’ve genuinely seen a B2B website value proposition that was “We help businesses do amazing things” — ???

↳ Start simple. Focus on your ideal customer's pain. What keeps them up at night? This means talking to your customers. Be narrow and be clear on how you solve this pain, what category your solution is, and the macro benefits that C-suite care about. It's as simple as that.

Me, me, me 🙋‍♂️

↳ Simply put, you’re talking about yourself too much and how great you think you are. You don’t need to make your audience aware of what you do, you need to make them care about what you do.

↳ Transition from inwards facing language to outwards facing language — less “we do x”, more “[benefit] for [persona]” (I realise this contradicts my Cognism example, that’s an exception that’s executed well — most aren’t)

Where to start with your value proposition?

A loose structure you can follow is:

H1:

[Main benefit that solves main pain] for [Target persona/team/industry]

Supporting text:

[Your solution/category] that [reinforce persona benefits your solution delivers] and [macro benefit that c-suite care about].

The takeaways? Simplicity, clarity, value.