The Offer

Is it possible to have good brand positioning and a good product but not a good offer?

Seems counterintuitive, but it is possible, particularly in SaaS.

Firstly, let's get on the same wavelength. What is an offer?

It's a proposal presented to a prospect of what the company will provide in exchange for the customer's money.

Here’s what an offer is made up of:

• Value proposition: Clear articulation of the benefits to a customer.
• Relevance: Addresses specific customer needs or pain points.
• Terms: Includes conditions, duration, and any limitations.
• Pricing: Reflecting the perceived value and market positioning.
• Uniqueness: Differentiates the product from competitors’ offerings.

Similar products, different offers

There are companies in similar markets, offering similar products with similar features, providing completely different offers.

An example? Vidyard, Wistia, and Loom.

What do they all have in common?

All have a product centred around creating and editing videos. They’re all targeted at B2B markets. They all enable users to share videos with colleagues and customers. They all provide some level of video analytics and are all targeted at users who believe video to be a critical tool in their business.

Here’s how each respective offer differs:

Vidyard

Vidyard’s core value proposition is Win More Deals with Video Messaging.

That value proposition directs the features they develop:

• You can integrate with sales tools like LinkedIn, Salesforce, and Gong.
• You can personalise each individual outreach video through AI.
• You can use their prospector tool to find target customers.
• You can track viewer engagement, see who watched your video in real-time and for how long, and use this data to optimise outreach and follow-ups.

Wistia

Wistia’s core value proposition is an all-in-one video platform that helps marketers enhance brand identity and drive prospect engagement.

That value proposition directs the features they develop:

• Video management and distribution from one platform.
• Video editing.
• Video branding customisation.
• Integration into marketing CRM for funnel workflows.
• Analytics for A/B testing, heat maps, and engagement graphs.

Loom

Loom’s core value proposition is: Share video messages with your teammates and customers to supercharge productivity.

That value proposition directs the features they develop:

• Easy and quick to record a video, then convert that video to documents or tickets with AI.
• Quick and easy to record your screen through Chrome extension or desktop app.
• Simple editing system.
• Embeddable videos on Google Workspaces and Slack.
• Comment and react to videos at timestamped points on the video.

See how three similar products can develop completely different offers

Those three are examples of SaaS that have nailed every element of their offer. However, as I mentioned at the start of this article, plenty of companies out there seem to get a lot of things right but ultimately fail with their offer.

I’m not taking into consideration offers that are flat-out terrible, and neither am I talking about offers at very early-stage startups.

I’m talking about offers at scaleups or relatively mature SaaS businesses. And when the company gets the offer wrong, it’s typically down to two reasons.

The first happens because of a big disconnect between what many think good marketing is and what it actually is.

Often, when people think of good marketing, they think of slick messages, beautiful brand identity, dialled-in customer acquisition, and converting funnels.

They view marketing as a very linear process.

But if you go to the fundamentals of marketing and what they teach on an MBA, good marketing is an effective strategy that…

Solves a meaningful problem

This may sound incredibly obvious, but I’ve worked with multiple businesses in the past that have raised a lot of money under the momentum of scaling but don’t actually deliver value. They don’t provide any meaningful transformation to someone’s life.

And often, in this scenario, the business is living off investor money in the interim, almost playing pretend.

They spend a significant amount of money on offices and hiring people. And when you look at what they’ve built, there’s no meaningful product that adds value.

On the surface, outside looking in, it looks like they’re successful, but they’re not. But without delivering meaningful value, it’s impossible to build a good offer that meets all the criteria listed above (value proposition, pricing, terms, uniqueness, relevance).

The second reason I see companies get offers wrong?

More on that in the next article.

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