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Technology PR: How to Make A Better Widget Lesson 2: The Essence of VAP-ness? The key to a good Value Added Proposition (VAP) is to understand its true value, related strengths and limitations. Simply identify what exactly makes your company and its products stand out. Unfortunately. . . more often than not . . . it’s not as simple as it seems. Close proximity to your organization’s marketing arm may muddy the picture. With each passing day, your entire company from top to bottom begins to believe more and more what is being passed around the proverbial sales and marketing water coolers. This may create a positive team environment but is extremely hazardous to VAP identification. The key to locating a good VAP is to ask questions. Ask your receptionist what callers are questioning about your company when they call the front desk. Ask the engineers where they see the value existing within your products. Ask the sales force which slides in a presentation most often generate questions from potential customers. If you’re the President or CEO, ask yourself what is the most common response by people sitting next to you on an airplane after you provide the answer to: "what is it that you do?" Meaning, how do they quickly identify your company and its products? Sometimes the key to VAP identification lies in what seems the most obvious method: brainstorming. A simple 30-minute session of writing down perceived VAP’s might free your organization from its near-sightedness to the sales and marketing water coolers. Your widget may be the only one on the block available in trendy, sleek-looking colors, and looks simply terrific in marketing collateral, at tradeshows, and lastly, in that great display case near the receptionist area. It is one cutting-edge looking widget. Lastly, your research also yields that it has the needed sales appeal amongst key demographics and decision makers based on its look and feel. Hey, it even matches your new business cards. A winner? Not necessarily. What if your competition innocently swings by your booth at the big yearly tradeshow, beats you to the punch in terms of product launch, and uses a similar design to the one formerly gleaming so proudly in that display case up front? The point being made is not that aesthetic appeal and product design should automatically be disregarded as key VAP’s. Rather, it is to raise the possibility that the identified VAP, the one championed by sales and marketing, may not be your ‘best VAP foot forward.’ In this instance, perhaps your key VAP was not the one most talked about—product design—rather, lies in a seemingly subtle 1/10th advantage in speed over your closest competitor’s similar widget. This small advantage, if marketed correctly, may be where the true market differentiator for your company and its widget exists. A VAP is only as useful as its ability to drive revenue and to differentiate your company from the competition. The key lies in finding the right one. Lesson #3 will tackle How to Use Your VAP and Influence People and other VAP essentials.
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