Strategies For Personalizing Value Propositions

People value what they create 63% more. Yet most digital experiences treat customers as passive recipients instead of co-creators. This psychological principle, known as the "Ikea Effect", is shockingly underutilized in digital journeys. When someone builds a piece of Ikea furniture, they develop an emotional attachment that transcends its objective value. The same phenomenon happens in digital experiences. After optimizing digital journeys for companies like Adobe and Nike for over a decade, I've discovered this pattern consistently: 👉 Those who customize or personalize a product before purchase are dramatically more likely to convert and remain loyal. One enterprise client implemented a product configurator that increased conversions by 31% and reduced returns by 24%. Users weren't getting a different product... they were getting the same product they helped create. The psychology is simple but powerful: ↳ Customization creates psychological ownership before financial ownership ↳ The effort invested creates value attribution ↳ Co-creation builds emotional connection Three ways to implement this today: 1️⃣ Replace dropdown options with visual configurators 2️⃣ Create personalization quizzes that guide product selection 3️⃣ Allow users to save and revisit their customized selections Most importantly: shift your mindset from selling products to facilitating creation. When customers feel like co-creators rather than consumers, they don't just buy more... they become advocates. How are you letting your customers build rather than just buy?

Most B2B SaaS companies miss the mark when it comes to messaging and positioning. They try to pack in EVERYTHING, including buzzwords, every feature, every new industry trend and end up with some convoluted SaaS-speak nonsense that most of the buyers don't understand—and certainly don't act on. The biggest mistake? Competitive copycats echo buzzwords no human has ever said aloud. And "final" copy ships without hearing a single customer heartbeat. Companies forget that every line is a promise of a better workday. When the promise feels real, your buyers remember. Here's my 6-step plan, built on research, refined by emotion: 1. Immerse yourself in your customers' day. Note every frustration and workaround. 2. Interview for emotion. "What stressed you out? What would have made you proud by week's end? What keeps you up at night?" Record their exact phrases. 3.. Map the gap. Tear down five competitors to spot the pains they ignore; the problems they're not solving. Plot where your buyers are feeling underserved. 4. Write the narrative from the lens of empathy. Keep it simple: A one-sentence value prop plus three proof pillars. Tie each of these to a concrete benefit (e.g., time back, confidence up, career impact stronger). Keep it simple. Read it aloud. Read it to someone outside of your industry. Do they grasp it quickly? Or do you have to explain it? If you do, this is a big 🚩🚩 and you need to go back to editing. 5. Draft your MVP and test, test, test. Drop lines from your narrative into ads, nurture emails, and BDR scripts. Track not just the clicks, but the RESPONSE. Did your message resonate? Did the prospects repeat your promise back in their own words? 6. Take your test winners and create a one-page playbook with example stories and customer quotes so that every single teammate can deliver it verbatim—and believe it. ⚠️ Pitfalls to avoid: - Buzzwords that sound impressive but echo no real pain - Internal acronyms or lingo that your buyers have never heard - Value props so long your reps need cue cards - Claims with no data or customer voice behind them - Skipping sales and CS feedback—the people closest to the emotional stakes Great messaging is a mirror reflecting your hopes and headaches. Start with their words, show the better life your product unlocks, and they'll feel—and respond—to the truth.

If you are writing sales messaging that could apply to anybody in your TAM, you're writing sales copy that nobody gives AF about. OUCH! I know that might be hard to hear, but here's the hack to better segment your TAM in 2025. ➡️ The harsh truth is that Founders who take a "boil the ocean" approach to selling in will fail. Here's how you can get better results in 3 steps: Step 1 - Move your focus from everybody who *could* possibly buy from you to the group of folks who are most likely to buy now, buy at a high price point, and later renew or be a referral source. Step 2 - From that much smaller group of accounts, create segments. These are not the traditional segments that help your organize your territories. These are segments that help you speak the language of a deep sub-set of prospects. I suggest at least 5 layers of segmentation blending firmographic data, signals, and contact-level data. EXAMPLE: You sell production line automation software. You believe your ICP is: US-based supply chain executives in manufacturing organizations with at least 1k employees. Great start, but it's time to add 5+ layers of segmentation before you can create a message that matters. Segment 1: Midwest "Manufacturing Belt" only Segment 2: Chief Supply Chain Officers only Segment 3: Machinery manufacturing only Segment 4: 50,000 to 100,000 employees Segment 5: New CFO hired in the past year Now you are only speaking to the CSCO or a sub-industry working in the region where you have the strongest social proof. By tightening the employee range you know they have a big enough problem to solve (+ can pick the best name drops) and a new CFO signals an openness to (re)explore cost-saving software. Step 3 - Use this process to launch dozens of micro-campaigns that speak to specific sub-sets of your territory because you've created enough segmentation to be 99% sure your copy will be RELEVANT to them. This is THE only way I've found to personalize at scale. I love teaching orgs how to better segment their accounts and create segment-specific value props. I call it #ValueBasedSegmentation ➡️ The result is: - Highly relevant copy - Emails that can be fully automated - High CTRs/replies without tedious personalization 📌 How do you personalize at scale?