Branding topics

Brand Messaging

Your company’s brand is equivalent to its personality. It’s the way you communicate with customers, the way you stand out from competitors, and how you get your company to be remembered.

Branding, from the words to the images, should evoke a consistent message and set of emotions from customers that speaks to your brand’s personality, product, and mission.

Sounds pretty theoretical, right? How do you actually create brand messaging that’s powerful and effective? Luckily, there is a strategy. Here are seven key tools to create compelling messaging for your business.

Core Brand Message

It’s important to start with the basics. To create a core brand message, start with these three simple questions. The result should be a succinct sentence or two that forms the core of your brand’s identity. From there, the rest of the messaging will follow.

We are a __ that does _ because ______.

Who are you?

The answer to this question can be as simple as your industry category or more complex, especially if you are trying to “disrupt” an industry.

What do you do?

What’s the purpose of your brand? Address your product and how it solves an existing problem or meets an existing need.

Why do you do it?

Yes, you do it to solve a problem, but this question should also speak to your brand’s values and vision. Give the customer a reason to connect with you beyond your product.

What sets you apart?

What sets you apart from your competitors? Define your brand’s value proposition and make sure that your messaging embraces it. Your value proposition should be important to your target customers and provable.

Who are you talking to?

Knowing your target audience is critical to success. The way you speak to them should show that you understand their interests and their needs. Develop buyer personas to help you identify this audience. Answer questions about them that address their age, income, interests, and lifestyle.

Tone of voice

Now that you’ve got those customer personas defined, create a tone of voice for your messaging that speaks to them. Decide if it will be casual or formal, playful or serious. It should reflect your product and the frame of mind your customer is in when they’re thinking about your brand. A healthcare company won’t have the same tone as a sneaker company, nor should it.

The elevator pitch

How would you describe your brand in under a minute? This exercise can really help you simplify your brand messaging and is often harder than you think!

Brand pillars

Take your brand positioning, your core brand message, and your values and put them into buckets known as “brand pillars.” These are meant to describe the most important selling points of your product. Keep in mind your customer and what’s important to them, as well as your brand’s value proposition in terms of competitive angle. These pillars will inform the focal points of your marketing content and you’ll use them over and over again in messaging.

Slogans & taglines

A slogan or tagline is often the first thing people think of when they think of branding. So, why did we put it last? Because your tagline should be informed by all the above. It’s a simple, memorable phrase that encompasses your brand’s core message. Another way to think about it is as your brand’s promise—targeted toward the customer, indicative of your vision, and stating clearly what you do.

Need help crafting brilliant brand messaging?

Atomicdust’s branding program will bring new insights to your marketing strategy. We’ve designed a branding program to help you build a foundation for your marketing strategy. Combining research and creativity, we will help you craft messaging that will capture the interest of your audience and energize your employees.

Our four- to six-week branding program is a mixture of consulting, marketing, writing and design. It will help you clarify business values, uncover fresh thinking about your market position, and see an outside perspective free from internal biases. Learn more.

Let’s talk branding.

(It’s pretty much all we talk about anyway.)

Question about branding? Want to discuss a project?

Fill out the form below, call us at (314) 241-2866, or click here to email Senior Account Manager Erika Cruse.