Bruce Smith’s Post

Developing a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) A unique value proposition (UVP) is a clear statement that describes the unique benefits of your product or service and how it solves your customers' problems. Your UVP should address the specific needs and pain points of your target audience. Start by conducting market research to understand your customers' challenges, preferences, and behaviors. Use this information to identify the unique benefits that your product or service offers. For example, a UVP for an eco-friendly cleaning product might highlight its ability to clean effectively while being safe for the environment. A compelling UVP should be clear, concise, and focused. Avoid jargon and overly complex language. Your UVP should be easy to understand and quickly convey the unique value of your product or service. For instance, a UVP for a meal delivery service might be: "Healthy, delicious meals delivered to your door in under 30 minutes." Differentiation is key to a strong UVP. Identify what sets your product or service apart from the competition. This could be a unique feature, superior quality, exceptional customer service, or a combination of factors. Highlight these differentiators in your UVP. For example, a luxury hotel might emphasize its personalized service and exclusive amenities. Your UVP should be integrated into all your marketing and communications. Ensure that it is prominently featured on your website, social media profiles, advertising, and other marketing materials. Consistent messaging reinforces your UVP and helps build brand recognition. For instance, a tech startup might include its UVP in its email signatures, social media bios, and website header. Regularly review and update your UVP to ensure it remains relevant and aligned with your customer's evolving needs and market trends. Gather feedback from customers and use data analytics to assess the effectiveness of your UVP. Make adjustments as necessary to maintain its impact. For example, an e-commerce company might update its UVP to reflect new product features or improvements. You can effectively communicate the unique value of your product or service, attract your target audience, and stand out in a competitive market.

🚀 Unlocking the Power of CRO for Your DTC Brand 🚀 If you're running a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) brand, you've probably heard of Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO). But what exactly is it, and why should it matter to you? Let's dive into the world of CRO and uncover why it's a game-changer for your business. In the competitive world of e-commerce, attracting visitors to your website is only half the battle. The real challenge is converting those visitors into paying customers. This is where CRO comes into play. CRO focuses on enhancing your website to increase the percentage of visitors who complete desired actions, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or filling out a contact form. Why CRO Matters: Imagine doubling your sales without spending an extra penny on marketing. Sounds too good to be true? With effective CRO, it's entirely possible. CRO helps you make the most out of your existing traffic by optimising your site for conversions. This means higher revenue, better return on investment (ROI), and improved customer satisfaction—all without increasing your marketing budget. How CRO Transforms Your Business: 1. Increased Sales: By fine-tuning your website's user experience, you can significantly boost your sales. Simple changes like improving your call-to-action buttons, streamlining the checkout process, and enhancing product pages can lead to more conversions. 2. Better Customer Insights: CRO involves analysing user behaviour on your site. This data provides valuable insights into what your customers want, helping you tailor your offerings to meet their needs. 3. Cost-Effective Growth: Traditional marketing strategies often require substantial investments. In contrast, CRO leverages your existing traffic, making it a cost-effective way to grow your business. 4. Enhanced Customer Experience: A website that is easy to navigate and user-friendly not only increases conversions but also leaves a positive impression on your customers, encouraging repeat business and referrals. CRO is not just a buzzword; it's a crucial strategy for any DTC brand looking to thrive in the digital marketplace. By focusing on optimising your website for conversions, you can achieve significant growth and outshine your competitors.

💡IKEA holds more value than its price tag. Here’s what I learned from IKEA’s marketing that you can apply to your start up. Products are personal. It is not just an object. Products are valuable because they help you. It is a solution that is affects you. That’s what makes it personal. Marketing is about making things personal. IKEA knew that making their product more personal is what increases their value. Here’s what I learned. ☝️They advertise the the face value. When you walk in IKEA, you know you are getting sleek Swedish furniture at an affordable price. We know this. We do this already. But here is the marketing secret sauce. ✌️They sneak in their earned value. IKEA becomes a valuable to its customers through their personal association with the brand. The customer personally dreamed up their own space. The customer personally found and selected the perfect piece for the abyss of the warehouse. 💀 The customer personally built the furniture and placed it in their home. Value can be placed in every interaction. This is what a furniture store did. You can do it too. ✅ Find what makes your product personal. Stop communicating features. Adverting what personal problem are you solving. Show how you affect personal lives of the people who chose your product ✅ Make discovery personal. People wear discovery of great brands like a badge of honor. Make sure that you grab their eyeballs on your discovery touchpoint. They need to feel like they discovered a product that personally resonates with them right from the get-go. ✅ Earn some personal value. Now comes the trickiest part. Make your customer work for it a little 😉 As Founders, we always feel like we need to sell sell sell. It’s true, but the best customers are those that put something at stake in the process of acquiring your product or service. They may take time reading more about your startup, they may check your competitors, or they may test out your product for themselves. Find a way to seamlessly insert personal value in your consumer journey. Making products personal is different for every industry and every startup. ✨ It may take time to find your startup’s personal secret sauce, but in our product landscape, every bit of value we can add to our startup makes all the difference.

Scaling DTC brands is actually very simple, in principle. All you need is: - a product people WANT - a website that converts - enough inventory - a creative machine - someone running your ads that knows what they are doing - a retention machine However, the reality: - people mistake making a few sales for genuine PMF - websites get built that 'look nice' and it takes too long for the lightbulb to come on that conversion rate is the most important thing and they can worry about looking nice when they are doing 100m a year - managing inventory is a real skill, minimizing dead stock and ensuring best-sellers are always on hand (or at least the majority of the time, the odd sellout can be great for creating fomo as long as the restock doesn't take months) - creative gets made that 'looks nice' and it takes too long for the lightbulb to come on that conversion rate is the most important thing and they can worry about looking nice and being totally on-brand when they are doing 100m a year - most agencies and freelancers are bang average and either phoning it in by totally relying on Meta and Google automation or don't know how to scale and are scared if they increase a budget by more than $20 they will go back into the dreaded learning phase and everything will sink to zero - retention encompasses several things including email and customer service; on email usually there is little to no A/B testing happening to drive results and things get stale, we saw significant performance jumps for one client last year when we convinced them to: a) stop being so transactional in every email and add value [jab, jab, hook] b) send more organic-looking text-only emails instead of the same templates and graphics all the time c) do multiple daily sends for big sales, before they were scared of 'getting a load of unsubs and lower deliverability' but from doing this the only thing that went up was their revenue So while it sounds easy enough in theory, the tougher reality is why most brands won't make it. Anything I missed?

The Secret Weapon of Strong Brands: Making a Customer Promise Many marketers struggle to prove the value of advertising. They throw money at campaigns, hoping for results, but often end up lost in the sea of online ads. This begs the question: is there a better way? The answer is yes, and it lies in a powerful strategy: building your brand around a clear customer promise. Here's why this approach works: Customers prioritize solutions. People buy products to solve problems. A brand that clearly communicates how it fulfills a need will resonate more than one that simply boasts features. Promises build trust. When a brand delivers on its promise, it builds trust with customers. This loyalty translates to repeat business and positive word-of-mouth marketing. Promises guide your actions. A strong customer promise becomes a roadmap for your entire company. From product development to marketing, every department can work together to ensure the promise is delivered. So, how do you craft a winning customer promise? Focus on benefits, not features. Don't just tell people what your product does, tell them what it will do for them. Be specific and memorable. A vague promise is easily forgotten. Make it clear and concise, something people can easily remember. Be deliverable. Don't make a promise you can't keep. Customers who feel cheated are unlikely to return. Here are some examples of effective customer promises: SIXT: "Don't Rent a Car, Rent the Car." (Guaranteed car selection) Mastercard: "There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Mastercard." (Hassle-free transactions) Snickers: "You're not you when you're hungry." (Energy boost) By following these steps, you can develop a customer promise that becomes the cornerstone of your brand. This, in turn, will lead to more effective marketing, stronger customer relationships, and ultimately, long-term success.

Brands overcomplicate what customers are looking for. After all, I think there’s only one thing that should be considered, with that being… A great product that actually works. As there are plenty of brands out there selling products that lack quality. Where it’s clear the brand was built without genuine care for the customer's needs. As I believe business should be about both sides getting a fair exchange of value. Now there are other desires customers have such as feeling involved and part of something. Where you can use subscriptions, communities, or even sending out mail as a way to thank your customers. This way they see your brand going the extra mile which they’ll come to appreciate and talk more about you. Obviously, you could get specific into the branding, marketing, and messaging behind your brand. But I genuinely think if you have a great product that works and you make your audience feel part of something. You can’t go wrong. P.S. What do you think customers are looking for the most?

Doing stuff you shouldn't do will make your brand stand out. B2B companies, this is important. 👇 Brands that show they care • about their market • their product • their customers • about their employees • the world • and society • And they do it authentically and are definitely on the front foot when representing the best of B2B out there. It's incredibly complicated to get all these things right and to put them into the configurator, press a button, and it all magically happens for you. It's down to amazing leadership, great vision, talented teams, and people free to take risks, be curious, and brave with their marketing, experiment, and challenge what's gone before. When you get that kind of attitude in a good company with good VC or strong stakeholders, you see change happening. But.. It only happens for 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 companies. That type of culture is not being created every day. It's unusual! We're never going to get every company to be able to embrace this stuff. It's as much about the leadership and the culture behind it as it is about the tactics of what we're talking about. Many people have in marketing have incredible maturity these days. They are prepared to take a crazy risk to do something that is going to create real attention and stand out in the market. They don't always revert to that conservative baseline, very common in B2B. It's more important to be interesting than it is to be right.  Every brand will make the right argument about their company being the one you choose, but the ones that interest us are the ones that start the conversation happens. Being interesting in B2B is hard. 1000s of brands in tech, money from VCs.. Noisy! If you're a buyer or a decision-maker, you want a simpler life. You want brands who, when they show up, it's clear what they do, you can get a real pulse check on the kind of company they are. Anything that gets in the way of that (brands that are just too complicated to understand), gets pushed to the side. Do curious and weird and odd things, and create that glitch effect where people just stop and go: "I didn't expect that!". That's a powerful technique in all forms of marketing. B2B or B2C, and sometimes consistency can get in the way. Experimentation, doing unusual things, stuff that your brand shouldn't do, is the kind of stuff that is going to make you interesting and grab people's attention. It gets back to having a culture in marketing and business that is brave and wants to push boundaries, try new things, and find nice middle ground of doing the business as usual stuff as well. ____ I'm Nemanja, a B2B Tech & SaaS Growth Strategist Specialized in High ACV & Long Sales Cycles I help you set up your company for growth You don't need a CMO/VP in-house until you're up to $15M in revenue You need me Ring the bell on my profile for more insights Or schedule a free 30-minute call (link under my headline) #B2B #marketing #culture #funkymarketing

I once worked with a D2C brand that was failing. We turned it around in just 90 days. "If you build it, they will come" is a myth that's bankrupting D2C brands. And it might be killing your business right now. You're working 80-hour weeks, pouring your savings into your dream.  But sales are trickling in at best. Sound familiar? Most D2C founders think success is just: → Creating a "revolutionary" product  → Launching a flashy website  → Throwing money at Facebook ads The harsh reality? You're draining cash with little to show for it. It's not sustainable.  It's not profitable. And it's not the path to that exit you've been dreaming about. Why? Because you might be underestimating what it takes to build a brand that lasts. Here's the truth: In D2C, It's not about having a great product.  It's about solving a real problem in a way no one else can. If you're not addressing genuine pain points,  you're just adding to the noise. Another forgettable brand in a sea of sameness. Imagine what if you tackle real issues? You don't just get customers.  You create raving fans who can't stop talking about you. Example - Google Liquid Death Story Here is how we save that failing brand ; ( You can do it too ) 1. Nail your unique value proposition ↳ How are you different from established brands and other D2C players? ↳ What makes you irreplaceable in your customers' lives? 2. Master your customer acquisition cost (CAC) ↳ Can you profitably acquire customers as ad costs skyrocket? ↳ What creative channels can you leverage to cut through the noise? 3. Build a robust retention strategy ↳ How will you turn first-time buyers into lifelong advocates? ↳ What's your plan to increase customer lifetime value month over month? 4. Optimize your supply chain ↳ Can you maintain quality and margins as you scale? ↳ How will you protect yourself from supply chain disruptions? 5. Create an omnichannel presence ↳ How can you meet customers where they are, beyond your website? ↳ What's your strategy for creating a seamless experience across all touchpoints? This wasn't about flashy marketing or "growth hacks". It was about understanding - unit economics  - building genuine customer relationships The result? A brand that's not just surviving,  but thriving in a cutthroat market. You can dominate the D2C space. But only if you focus on solving real problems and creating sustainable growth strategies that stand the test of time. D2C success in a nut-shell → Product-market fit is just the beginning. Your ability to scale profitably is what separates the winners from the losers. PS: Are you ready to stop playing small and build a D2C brand that becomes a household name? DM me "Now" and book a D2C strategy session Now. #CRO #Conversions #Scaling #Brands

INNOVATION + MARKETING-COST= PROFITS Why big brands such as CocaCola (Coke),English Premier League(EPL),Apple,Samsung,Netflix,LG,Safaricom,Equity Bank,KCB Bank among many others keep on advertizing despite enjoying worldwide popularity?Big brands focus on specific niche (80-20 rule). Coke sells soft drinks and water (80% soft drinks,20% water). Good to know your 80-20 for better revenue/profits maximization. Great to learn that CocaCola spent over $ 645.4m on advertising despite being huge brand.Our own Safaricom spends over $4m on adverts yet it's in every Kenyan household. Why aggressive marketing then? -To create more brand awareness -To acquire and retain new customers -To drive more profits and growths -To enhance more customer engagements. But marketing is art.Art requires highest level of creativity. Nobody wishes to waste money unless it's basic need. To make customer feel like they aren't wasting their money on unnecessary products,companies have devised ways. Many companies engage into psychological selling.It's creating fake illusion into the minds of customers. And that is why terms like luxury,comfort,tasty,classy,sporty come in. Why should a customer purchase Rolls Royce when they can drive nissan note?Why should airports sell its products costlier than retail outlets? It comes down to branding? Customers don't want cheaper products,they want reasons (stories) why they SHOULD pay more for your brands.Creating marketing stories require art.Art is creativity. But as you do creative marketing,innovate quality products so that the sales teams cement the customer loyalty. My lecturer would always sell,if you CAN'T sell yourself that you have no business selling any product. Sales is passion,sales is talent,sales is kaizen.Excellent product innovation and creative marketing lead to brand/customer loyalty hence better sales. If you can't market,you can't sell and no revenue. What is your marketing story?