How to create the right B2B offer
Commoditized offers vs proprietary offers
Welcome to this edition!
How to create the right B2B offer
In this edition you’ll learn:
Why you should avoid creating a commoditized offer.
How to create a proprietary offer instead.
What makes a great offer?
Avoid creating a commoditized offer at all cost
Commoditized offers are hard to sell
A commoditized offer is hard to sell because it can be compared to other offers. Thus, it’s competing on price and gets objections like “I can get it cheaper”, "If you remove feature C, will it be cheaper?".
This comment from Laura Marquez summarizes the point:
Example of a commoditized offer:
A marketing agency selling websites, SEO, social ads, and google ads with a “we are a 360 degrees marketing agency” → This is easily compared and prospects can find experts for each of those items.
Instead, you should create your proprietary offer
Proprietary offers cannot be compared, they are unique
Here are the 5 key criteria to build a proprietary offer:
Rare: cannot be found anywhere else
Unique mechanism: only you deliver this way
Painful problem: solving a problem people are ready to pay for
Clear outcome: crystal clear what your customers will get
Positioned: not selling too many things
And here's what unique offers do to your business:
Better branding
More margin (to reinvest)
More sales (because of rarity)
Happier customers (more involved)
Examples of a proprietary offer:
In my previous business, we had a commando offer. During 4 weeks we conduct growth marketing experiments to identify winning channels. For this we set up a squad of growth experts who specialize in your industry.
How to build your proprietary offer
To create a proprietary offer you need a unique mechanism. It’s your unique selling point and key differentiator that can only be accessed through you.
Here is a list of unique mechanisms (not exhaustive):
Unique technology → only you possess this technology
Unique process or methodology → only you use this system
Unique case studies → only you did it for other clients
Unique target segment → only you focus on this specific audience
Unique set of skills → only you have those skills in house
Unique timeline → only you can deliver so fast
Of course, you need to market this unique mechanism correctly
Stephan Huez shares an important point here:
“Expertise is different to marketing that expertise”
Your offer should fit a broader narrative
Have you ever heard about the “big idea” concept? It’s about shaping a point of view on your target market and say “here’s my opinion and here is WHY I created this offer”. This gives context about the problem you are solving and why you chose this unique mechanism over another one. It’s super powerful.
→ And that’s the role of your content strategy
Read this free edition if you are interested to know more.
What makes a great offer?
Some offers are constantly sold out whereas others get peanuts. Some people struggle to sell offers while they have 100,000 followers and others can sell $10,000 offers with 2000 followers. The reason is simple:
A bad offer will completely annihilate all your marketing efforts;
A good offer will make everything else easier.
Great offers solve a PUR problem
If you are solving not-so painful problems, you’ll get objections like “OK but not now”, “Sounds interesting but I’m not sure we need this”, “our team will struggle to use this product”.
In a nutshell, it makes sense theoretically but people don’t buy. This shows that the problem the product solves isn't big enough for businesses to want to pay for it.
You should not try to fix ‘acceptable’ problems:
That’s because people are always busy and solving their current ‘hot’ problems. So you need to find out what are your top priorities right now. What is preventing them from reaching their objectives? If you find this, it will be much easier to sell.
Identify a Painful, Urgent, Recognized Problem:
You might be solving a weak problem due to one of these reasons:
1.Not Listening to Customers: Skipping the step of asking customers what they need can lead to products that miss the real problems customers face.
2.Following Weak Market Trends: Making a product based on shallow market trends can result in short-term gains but doesn't meet lasting needs.
3.Thinking of the Product First: Starting with a product idea and then trying to find its market is backward. This often leads to solutions looking for problems, rather than the reverse.
That’s why a great way to build an offer is to use the audience-first mode:
Alright that’s the end of this newsletter. I hope it helped you! Thanks for reading :)
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