You probably have them and you didn’t even know they were called value propositions (or value prop as I’ll be typing) until right now.

Value propositions are something that brings value to your client and is a promise of something you plan to deliver as part of their client experience. These could also be something that is different from what other photographers are doing in your area or that you believe you do better.

Why have value propositions? One major reason is that they help define your brand and allow you to begin differentiating yourself from other photographers!

One of the most famous value propositions of all time is the Value Menu. No matter what McDonald’s you walk into, you can be assured that you’re receiving the best prices and built in-discounts that save you money.

This should be the same thing for your business! You should be communicating your value propositions to your clients and ensuring that you’re doing these for every single client that walks in the door to create a consistent experience.

Let’s dive into how to better understand your value props and then add those into your marketing and branding message.

1. What are you doing in your business?

The first step is writing down and listing every, single thing that you do in your business. This could be something  as simple as offering unique locations all the way to offering destination shoots to your clients. Maybe it’s that you promise to have your client’s images done by a certain time or that you are determined to capture their personalities in their images. These are just a few examples. List what’s important to you as a photographer as some of these may be one of your value propositions that you believe in.

2. How do they feed into your client’s experience?

How are your value props truly benefiting them? This is where you explain how they are gathering value from what you’re doing in your business. If it’s hair and makeup, simply saying that you offer professional hair and makeup with every session is not enough. You need to break it down for how this benefits them.

3. How are you going to tell them about this?

Now that you have listed what you’re doing that brings value to your clients or how it benefits them, it’s time to figure out how you’re going to explain your value props to them. Sticking with the hair and makeup example, this may look something like saying in an Instagram post “I love offering professional hair and makeup with every senior so that you look your best during senior photos and confident during every single step of your photos.” See how that’s so much better than just saying “We offer professional hair and makeup.” Yuck! This helps paint a picture in their head.

Understanding your value propositions is one of the biggest things I do in my business! I repeat this on places like my website, social media and of course client blog posts. Plus, think about how you can space things out. Maybe one month you talk about hair and makeup and then the next you talk about all the amazing locations you offer. Change it up so it’s not always the same and you’re covering what makes you different without bombarding your clients all at once.