Defined messaging leads to a consistent brand, a loyal customer base, and a strong content strategy.

Too often, brand messaging documents get shoved to the back of a digital drawer. This happens for two reasons:

1. The business does not realize how important the brand messaging document is and how to use it.

2. The brand messaging document isn’t delivered in a useful format. 

But let’s be honest: businesses with an existing brand messaging document are miles ahead of those who don’t have one at all. 

Why? Because brand messaging is the backbone of a business’s brand presence. 

What is brand messaging?

Brand messaging is the way in which a business communicates its value proposition to its target audiences. It brings together who the business is, what it does, and why it matters. At its best, brand messaging builds a relationship between a business and its audiences. It inspires and motivates, fueling consumers to engage with a business’s products or services.

Brand messaging is part of a cluster of elements that make up a business’s brand, such as:

• Brand personality, voice, and tone (eg, does the brand sound like a cool older sister? A tenured college professor?) 

• Visual brand identity (eg, what colors, fonts, and graphic style define the brand?)

• Core brand messaging elements (eg, what is the value proposition?)

Why is brand messaging important?

Brands can evoke emotions in people, emotions similar to those we have with human connections. In a crowded market, nurturing those emotions in potential customers will help a business stand out. 

Consistent Brand: A brand messaging strategy gives a business consistency across all communication channels, from social media to press releases. This is important since most businesses have different people writing social media posts and press releases. Yet the business’s messages, objectives, and personality should remain the same. 

Loyal and Growing Customer Base: A consistent brand drives more customer loyalty and word-of-mouth referrals. If customers resonate with the foundational brand messages, they will stick with the brand longer and tell their friends about it. 

Note: This doesn’t mean that brands need to have distinctive personalities like Wendy’s X (formerly Twitter) personas. It just means that the brand’s voice and messages need to connect with their target audiences. 

Strong Content Strategy: Defined brand messaging is the starting point of a powerful content strategy. Creating content is time-consuming but it is crucial for a business’s long-term success. A content strategy guides businesses to invest resources in creating the right content, content that will ultimately generate sales. It is impossible to create a content strategy without a value proposition, key messages, or business values.

What exactly goes into brand messaging?

A brand messaging strategy will include a voice and style guide as well as core messaging elements for the business. The messaging will be based on a deep knowledge of a business’s target audiences and a clear understanding of the business’s unique value proposition.

Voice and Style Guide: The voice and style guide will define how the business’s personality gets expressed across different channels and to different audiences. While its personality will not change, a business’s tone of voice might be different for its internal audiences (employees or board members) than its external ones (prospects and existing customers). It might be more casual on social media than in press releases. The voice and style guide will include examples of language to use and to avoid.

Core Messaging Elements:

Common components of core messaging include:

• A tagline: What is a concise and catchy way of describing the business?

• A value proposition: What value does the business offer to its target audiences?

• A positioning statement: What makes the business different than its competition?

• A set of company values: What guiding values or principles does the business embrace in its work?

• A set of messaging pillars: What are 3-5 messages that the business wants to communicate consistently?

• An “About” statement: How does the business describe itself to its target audiences?

• A mission statement (usually for nonprofits): what is the business’s purpose?

• A vision statement (usually for nonprofits): what is the business’s vision of how the world will be different, should it accomplish its mission?

What should a business do with brand messaging?

Once the brand messaging has been defined, here are a few ways to use it:

Share It With Key Customers: Let your key customers know that you have updated your messaging. Explain why you made the changes and what you hope to accomplish with it. (You might even ask them for feedback.) This is a good way to keep them engaged and potentially generate some referrals.

Update Your Marketing Materials: Go through your marketing channels–such as your website, social media profiles, and proposal templates–and make sure all of the copy is updated. You may even need to rewrite portions of existing copy to better reflect your new brand voice.

Print Copies: Yes, print. Print a copy for anyone who will be communicating on behalf of the organization, whether internally or externally. Make sure they can easily reference it.

Frame It: Take the most important parts of your brand messaging–such as your core values–and turn them into office artwork. Get them beautifully designed, framed, and hung on your walls so that everyone can see them. 

Develop a New Content Strategy: Now that you have solidified your brand messaging, you can develop a content strategy that emphasizes those messages.

ConiferCo works with our clients to develop brand messaging documents that will not get forgotten in a shared drive. Based on our clients’ needs, we customize the end product so that it is useful and usable. 

Conclusion

Business leaders should invest in brand messaging because it builds a loyal customer base, offers brand consistency across channels, and serves as the launchpad for a powerful content marketing strategy. 

But while many businesses focus on their logo and visual identity, they neglect their brand messaging. The messaging, which works in tandem with the brand’s visual identity, is fundamental to a brand’s health. Compelling brand messaging hooks audiences in and keeps them engaged emotionally. And that emotional connection is what will cause a brand to grow and thrive. 

Need new brand messaging? Here are ways we can help:

1. Write new brand messaging for your business.

2. Run a half-day or full-day brand workshop to lay the foundations for new brand messaging.

Interested? Send us a note.