“Who Are Ya?” A Recipe for Writing an About Us
Most new businesses encounter an empty “About Us” box within the first few clicks of their foundation. The task of filling that empty box can be extremely challenging, and it is pivotal to the direction and success of your new venture. It might sound obvious, but no one is going to buy your products or services unless you tell them what they are. And it might sound simple, but defining what it is that you actually do in a clear and concise form often proves difficult, particularly at the beginning of your startup journey.
Disclaimer: I am about to conflate a series of marketing terms that are usually defined separately, risking the wrath of marketing professionals everywhere! But I am working from the premise that, just like a builder needs materials and a cook needs ingredients, an About Us writer needs some content for their creation. And two ideal ingredients for an About Us are a USP and a value proposition.
A USP, or unique selling proposition, is typically a single sentence headline that defines what is unique or distinctive about your business. To write a good USP you need to focus on a single point of differentiation that sets you apart from the crowd in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Once you have your USP, you’ll need to articulate a strong and unique value proposition, telling your audience not just what your product or service is, and not just why they should buy it, but why they should care about your company. Investopedia defines the term ‘value proposition’ as:
“a business or marketing statement that a company uses to summarize why a consumer should buy a product or use a service.”
As the Zoho Academy’s insightful guide makes clear, a USP and a value proposition are fundamental building blocks of a new brand, providing the foundations to create brand positioning, mission, vision, and values statements. They are often the first bits of copy your audience will encounter, featuring prominently on a company’s homepage and in About Us sections on social media.
Visitors to the new Mammoth website, launching imminently, will encounter our own USP and value proposition. Yet few will appreciate the hours of toil that have gone into developing these simple lines of copy. Ten months in, and we have finally crafted an About Us that encapsulates what we do. Read on to get an exclusive look at it, and to learn from our experiences along the way. Here’s 6 tips on how to find your USP, develop a strong value proposition, and write an About Us that you can believe in!
1. Research
Conducting market research is the first and most important stage of this journey. Yes, you want to be original. But it is almost impossible to define what makes you unique if you don’t understand the existing market. “The same, but different” is often the best strategy for an About Us. If you’re an electrician, you want your About Us to sound like an electrician. In musical terms, you want to play in the right key for your industry or sector. Once you find it, you can riff to your heart’s content. But finding the right key is important for building trust and credibility with your reader. Whether you like it or not, they will instantly categorise your business based on your About Us copy. Make sure they put you in the right box!
By browsing some webpages and social media profiles of businesses in your area you can begin to build up a picture of how they write about themselves. Pay attention to form and function. How long, on average, are their About Us sections? What aspects of their brand story do they focus on? What kind of language or keywords do they use? Pick out some of your favourite About Us sections to draw inspiration from, and use your research notes to help you find the right key.
2. Gather your ingredients
After the research stage comes the writing. Here are some elements of a good About Us to help you get started:
- Tell your Brand Story and Founder Journey. A compelling story will help you establish a bond with your audience. And as everyone’s story is different, it might lead you towards discovering what makes you unique to hone in on your USP.
- What do you care about as a business? This section will help you convey your personality and brand values, vital elements for achieving engagement with your reader.
- Ask questions of your reader to elicit a direct response. These will help you think about how your product or service will fulfil their needs, and succinct questions can sometimes communicate your offering more clearly and directly to the reader.
- Include a CTA. Capitalise on your excellent About Us by guiding your reader to take the next step toward becoming your customer or client. But don’t be overbearing. “Get in touch” is more effective than “BUY NOW!”
3. Think about your USP
At Mammoth, separating ourselves from the crowd in a saturated creative industry was vital. We reached out to other local agencies for informal chats on their own stories and processes, and we received some very generous and insightful feedback that helped us define our own USP. Here are some of the things that make us unique:
- We are lockdown founders, having established Mammoth in the summer of 2020. This enabled us to adapt successfully to new modes of remote working and delivery.
- We are a small team of 2 graphic designers and 1 copywriter. At first, we wondered whether this would count against us, so we were reluctant to share this information. But after 10 months of project experience, we have learned how our small size shapes our delivery – we are more responsive, more accountable, and more bespoke.
- We are well-qualified. Our writer has a PhD in English Literature, and our designers both achieved first-class degrees in Graphic Design. In an industry of autodidacts, our research backgrounds provide a theoretical grounding that helps distinguish our work from the competition.
- We provide two services – writing and design – in one place. Many creative agencies outsource their copywriting or graphic design work. At the Mammoth Studio the two strands are brought together, combining compelling copy and stunning graphic design. The result? High quality and harmony across the board.
4. Pay attention to what you DON’T do
Sometimes it is more important to define what you DON’T do. Our first ever About Us listed a wide range of creative services, including marketing and social media management. Evaluating our progress at the 10-month stage, we collectively agreed to drop these parts of our service to focus exclusively on writing and design projects. We are a creative agency rather than a marketing agency, and this distinction, developed through experience, is crucial. What you list as your services will dictate the type of projects that come in, so be as specific as you can, and focus on what you do best and what you enjoy most.
5. Visualise it
If you’re writing an About Us for your website, it is important to think about how it will be presented. Experiments with visual presentation can also help you to refine and rethink your statement.
Our graphic experiments with Venn diagrams led us in a new direction, simplifying our USP (two services in one place) into a mathematical formula. Recent UX research recommends clearly communicating your value proposition within 10 seconds to avoid losing your user’s attention. This formula significantly reduces our USP communication time.
The visualisation process also prompted some creative reimaginings of our M logo. Designed to suggest the side profile of a woolly mammoth, the three legs of our M can also be taken to represent the three different strands of our USP formula. We might encounter some difficulties as we grow, adding legs to the M until the mammoth becomes a caterpillar (!), but for now, it works…
6. Be prepared to edit and update!
Our About Us has gone through several draft versions, adapting every few months as the business grows and adapts. Your About Us should reflect the development of your business, so make sure you keep it updated.
Et voilà, here’s one we made earlier…
“Based in Colchester, Mammoth is a creative agency with an international client base and a diverse portfolio across branding, campaigns, and print and digital design.
Need a powerful brand identity for your startup? Looking to refresh, refine, or rethink your existing brand? Want some high-quality content to drive your next campaign?
Get in touch to find out how we can help you.”
