Peter Drucker once made a nice remark: "The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him or her and sells itself.”

The marketing department should help make a product so good, promotion would not be needed. Seems like something that happens quite a lot on the internet. The funny thing is, most of the time, it's not the marketeer but the entrepreneur who's behind the great idea for a product.

Why should a user want your product and/or service? What makes the user choose you and not your competitor. When you start a new business you can guess, or look at the competition, or just ask a client panel. I think it’s great to start with the guessing, because it does not restrain you. You should let various people do the guessing if possible.

The idea you have had can be validated and completed defining your idea in the form of a value proposition.

A value proposition is like a sum: A+B+C +… = customer satisfaction (or even customer delight, if that is what you’re going for). In general you can say the customer wants a combination of characteristics from a product / service, the relationship and the price.

As you can imagine, the way you define the customer values, is in reality a core-part of what makes you different from the competition. This message of how you are different will be used in design and content.

Not all potential customers are equal, some may find a brand name extremely important, others the newest technologies, others may think availability of a service is not important etc. You will have to make your mix for your targetgroup. Also, some products are great to use, but only when they are free.  

The product and service quality, are always relative to a set of requirements which are defined by your customers (iso 9000). You’re have to find out what they think is important and at what level, and make this explicit. Although we’re not yet thinking specifically about a webshop or the valueproposition of the website, it’s good to think about your shipping and payment processes, they’re aspects of your relationship so they do matter!

Although this sounds a bit clinical, the value proposition is just the translation of that entrepreneurs gutfeeling of his idea to something you can communicate later on.

After defining your combination of variables, you will have some statements for each of the variables. Some are "normal", expected by the customer, but some are really special, they make your product different from the rest.

After you have taken a look at the producs or services you are going to offer, you should take a look at your future website and define the unique value proposition for your site. It should make a difference for your customer buying from your site then from a competitor with a similar service or product. Your website maybe a marketing channel, a service channel, or a store. The question is what makes your site special?

You should be able to point out what makes you different in one or 2 scentences:

For mac donalds I guess it will be something like:  Clearly defined products, in a reasonable range with constant quality, deliverered quickly, in a kid-friendly environment, for a reasonable price. I guess it’s not so important what you get to eat, but that you can get every time the same taste.

For amazon.com it’s not the books, every body sells them. It is something like: the enormous range of books, available at excellent prices, plus the ease of searching, browsing and buying them.

A good value proposition is the basis for a great marketing campaign. You can also predict a bit of your future success: if you have something nobody else has (a hotel at a beautiful private beach) or may use (a patent) or do something nobody can do any time soon (the fastest delivery on the planet) and your market wants that, you are on your way to success.

On the web use strategy
to be faster than the rest