Brand messaging is vital for any entrepreneur looking to succeed. Without a good brand messaging framework, it will take longer for your company to reach its goals.
Brand messaging strategy is the thing that covers how a company positions itself. It can include many elements that work together to help attract followers and customers. Consider how it can help any organization improve and reach sales targets.
Key Takeaways
- Brand messaging is a crucial marketing strategy that communicates your brand’s essence, including its personality, tone of voice, and values, to both internal marketing teams and the external audience, aiming to attract and retain customers by resonating with their needs and preferences.
- The framework for brand messaging encompasses various elements such as brand voice, slogan, positioning statement, mission, vision, values, value proposition, differentiators, and an elevator pitch, each contributing to a cohesive and compelling narrative that distinguishes a brand from its competitors.
- To develop effective brand messages, businesses must thoroughly understand their own identity and goals, know their target audience deeply, differentiate from competitors, ensure all messaging aligns with the brand’s core values and vision, and consistently implement this messaging across all marketing channels and customer touchpoints.
What Is a Brand Message?
Brand messaging is a marketing tactic you can use to tell people about your brand. It includes things like internal and external messaging.
Internal messaging includes the things that you and your team use to set your brand apart. External brand messaging covers the messages you send to the public, including your customers and overall audience. Both types of messaging should cover your brand’s personality, the tone of voice, and the language you use.
Of course, these elements will differ based on your organization and your clients. You need to create messages that will attract the right people.
Depending on your industry, you may use a different voice than a similar organization. So consider exactly what you sell and how you can market that offer effectively with brand messaging.
Elements of Brand Messaging
Brand messaging refers to numerous elements that make up your brand messaging pillars. They should support your company and promote your services and values well.
Explore the following brand messaging elements, and consider what you already have established for your company. Perhaps you have already incorporated these elements, but they need some improvement. Or maybe you’re starting from scratch.
Either way, the following elements create a successful brand message.
Voice
Your brand voice refers to the tone you use when marketing your brand. Consider word choice, phrasing, and energy.
As you start building your brand messaging, you can identify the way to get into customers’ hearts. For example, you might want to be more formal if you target professionals or more energetic if you manufacture toys.
Be sure to identify who you want to speak to and how you want them to receive your message. Then, you can use the same tone and messaging in a blog post or elsewhere on your website. If you can do that, you’ll be able to attract and retain your ideal clients.
Promoting your business will also be easier when you use a consistent tone. People will be able to recognize your posts when they see them.
Slogan
Not every brand has a slogan, but it can be a vital part of your brand messaging. If you think about popular brands like McDonald’s or Nike, the slogans immediately come to mind: “I’m lovin’ it” and “Just do it.”
Try to create a slogan that attracts your target audience and sticks in their mind. The slogan can make people feel accepted, encouraged, or happy. When they associate such a phrase with your brand, they’ll more likely buy from you.
Using a slogan or tagline is one of the best brand messaging opportunities. You should combine it with your other branding materials and make it match your brand voice.
Positioning Statement
Your brand positioning statement is another essential part of an effective brand message. The statement can convey what you do and how you and your business can help people.
Perhaps you offer something unique the world hasn’t seen before. Use that in your statement as one of the selling points for your business. Include your statement in all of your marketing materials to help people learn more.
Additionally, the positioning statement should include what you do and who you help. It can also showcase how you help those people and what makes you different from other companies in the same industry or that sell the same thing.
Mission
Creating a mission is something you should do when you first start your business because it helps guide your brand message strategy.
A mission statement should cover the big idea behind your business and why your brand matters.
If you didn’t develop one when you started, it’s not too late! Create your mission statement now, ensuring it’s in line with your audience and what they care about. The statement should also make sense for your industry, and your actions should support the mission you develop.
If customers agree with your mission, they may want to buy from your business more. As such, establishing a mission that resonates with your target demographic can boost branded traffic, leads, and ultimately sales.
So, consider what you – and your customers – care about and how your organization can help with that.
Vision
Along with your mission, you should develop a vision statement. They may sound similar, but there is a key difference. The vision statement speaks to a future company goal, while the mission statement explains how to get there.
Perhaps you want to be the leading company in your area or the one that celebrates completely eco-friendly practices. Either way, craft your vision statement to help with the brand positioning so you’ll be able to market your business as you dream it to be.
If you don’t have a vision yet, consider how you can incorporate one into your current messaging. That way, you won’t have to develop new messages from scratch, and you can encourage customers to partner with your vision.
Values
Another part of your brand message is your company’s values. Solid values can help your brand messaging by connecting with your clients and building trust. Consider what you, your company, and your consumers consider important and develop core values based on those things.
Maybe you use eco-friendly product packaging because you value the health of the environment. Or perhaps you value being ethical and honest with your clients and followers.
Whatever it is, ensure you can stick to the established values. Once you promote them, your clientele will come to you because of those values, so there can’t be any gray area or wiggle room.
Value Proposition
Your value proposition is something you can use to tell customers why they should value you. It can include some of your top-selling points, such as a unique manufacturing process you use. In other words, think about what sets you apart from other businesses.
For example, maybe you only manufacture products locally. This is one of the best value propositions, especially for customers in your area.
Once you find what makes your company valuable, use it in your marketing strategy. Sharing your value proposition can be one of the best messaging opportunities. You can show you really want to help people.
Differentiators
Similar to value propositions, differentiators set you apart in your niche. Instead of including top selling points, differentiators could be a variety of things, like:
- Brand personality
- Tone of voice
- Colors
Think about other brands and how you differ from them. Use that information when crafting your messaging to make sure yours stands out while remaining relevant. That way, your campaigns will have a better chance of success.
If you can’t figure out what makes you different, ask your clients. They may be able to tell you why they chose you over the competition.
Elevator Pitch
Appropriately named, an elevator pitch is a statement you can say quickly when in an elevator with someone. It should convey your messaging in as few words as possible – ideally with a few catchy phrases or ideas – so people can easily remember your brand.
As you create an elevator pitch, make sure you prioritize strong brand messaging. You can use your brand voice or another part of your brand strategy to craft the pitch.
If you need examples, look at pitches from other brands. See what they cover in their pitches and how they say them. Then, you can figure out how to market your business the same way.
How to Come Up With Your Brand Messages
Now that you understand the elements of a brand message, you need to create them for your own brand. Ensure each component makes sense for your business and your customers.
Coming up with these things can be difficult, especially your first time. If you have a team, hold brainstorming sessions and bounce ideas off each other. You can even test out branding messages with short ads and see how people react.
As a starting point, consider the following steps that can help you develop the various elements of your brand messaging.
Understand Your Business
Before other people can understand your brand, you have to understand it. Think about your goals and what separates you from similar businesses. Knowing this will help when it comes to creating your brand story, brand promise, tagline, and other elements.
Consider other brands and their value propositions. You might find that you do something very different from others in your niche. Even if things are similar, think about how you can make them different.
Maybe you have a slightly different target customer, or you do things a different way. Use your understanding of your own organization to create the right messaging to share.
Know Your Target Audience
Even if you know your business well, you need to know your target audience just as well. Targeting your consumer demographics and understanding what they value can help you craft your overall brand, including your tone of voice and written identity.
For example, maybe your audience cares about self-care. So you decide to develop a tone that is a bit more caring and empathetic about that.
Consumers who want to take care of themselves can see that message. Then, they may start to like and trust you, and they may convert to paying clients.
Research Your Competitors
If you still can’t figure out how to hit on the pain points of your clients, research similar companies. Look at their brand messaging, language, value statement, and overall brand strategy. Figure out their values and those of their clients.
Read their brand story and see how they relate that to their services. Then, you can get ideas for creating your own brand messaging. Remember to always make the brand messaging unique. You want people to come to your company for a reason – because you set yourself apart from the competition, not because your business is similar to theirs.
Researching your competition is an easy, low-cost way to help your business. Whether you have brand messaging or not, you’ll be able to improve your messages and make them more attractive to a potential customer.
Relate Your Brand to Your Audience
You need to relate your message back to your audience. If people can’t relate to you, they won’t buy.
Be sure to evaluate your target audience and their values. Think about what they want from your business. You can even survey people directly for their opinions on things like your tagline.
These tools can help you develop a message that will resonate with your people, especially if you have no idea how to craft your branding materials. And you’ll be able to stand out and talk to your ideal audience directly.
Stay True to Your Brand
Next, you should always stay true to your brand in your brand message. Make sure to always remember your values and keep your message relevant to your business and audience.
If necessary, refer back to your mission statement, language, and voice when crafting new campaigns and products. Think about your value proposition and how it helps with positioning you as an expert.
The more consistent you are, the more people will trust you. They will know that you aren’t just hopping on trends to support certain causes that you don’t care about or other trends just to get people to notice your company.
Implement Your Brand Messaging Strategy
Once you come up with all of your messaging, it’s time to implement your brand strategy. This is where you will combine everything discussed above and implement it into your campaigns, images, and posts.
Be sure to use your voice on your website and in any blog articles you write. Keep your branding the same in your marketing emails and on social media. That way, people will get a sense of your company no matter where they first hear about you.
If you have a marketing team, they should understand the brand messaging so they can seamlessly implement the brand message across various forms of social media and advertising.
Brand Messaging Done Right
Brand messaging can be difficult, but it’s essential to success. Be sure to look at an example or two to help understand how to create a brand. Then, you’ll know what to cover and how to get your message across to your people.
And if the strategy doesn’t work, you can change it later. Soon enough, you’ll find the ideal messaging for your clients.
FAQs
You may still have questions about how your company can use brand messaging. Here are a few more details to help make your brand the best it can be.
Your brand messaging framework can show others you’re an authority in your niche. As long as you include your positioning statement and value propositions, creating your brand messaging can help you stand out from similar organizations all over the world.
It’s not the only way to build that trust, but it is effective. And it can reduce confusion for people who come across you and your organization.
A good brand messaging framework will focus on your value proposition and positioning statement. You should focus on internal and external strategies. For example, you can combine your mission with your slogan. However, once you find what works, you’ll be able to use it for almost everything you do.
As you develop your brand messaging framework, you need to identify a few things. First, consider your values for your business. Think about how those relate to your clients and why they should care.
After you identify and create your messaging, you’ll use it on your website. Include it in every blog post you write, on your services page, and on other pages of your site. You’ll also want to use it on your social media accounts and in emails. Make sure to use messages in all marketing campaigns or other promotional efforts.
