Working with an expert to hone your brand messaging can seriously boost your small business— but you need to put the messages to work to see results!
As a small business copywriter and brand messaging consultant, I love empowering clients with foundational messaging. In this post, I outline five areas of your business that benefit from solid messaging and how to use elements like your mission statement, brand promise, core values, and more to make an impact.
Read on to learn how your messaging plays a role in:
Marketing Your Service or Product
Delivery of Your Service or Product
Strategic Planning
Networking
Team Leadership
1. Marketing Your Service or Product
Brand messaging is foundational, so share it with your graphic designer, social media specialist, or other contractors creating your business assets.
“Brand messaging not only establishes a voice for a business, but it informs the tone of the visuals,” explains Natalie Leroux, Founder & Creative Director of Studio Eighty Seven. “Color, typography, and layout are all affected. When a client comes to me with brand messaging in hand, we're a step ahead in creating something amazing together.”
When it comes to marketing, there are two ways you’ll use your brand messaging.
Directly on specific channels.
About Statements
Use your long about statement on your website about page, supplementing it with your professional affiliations or short team bios. Use your short about statement in directory listings or profiles in networking groups.
Social Media Profile About Statements
These character-count and platform-specific profiles will be used directly on channels like Instagram and Facebook.
Tagline
Your tagline is a short phrase or sentence that captures the essence of your brand. For example, I developed this tagline for a family photographer: “Inspired Images of Lives in Motion." She can use these words for her website, client gifts or promotional items, advertisements, business cards, or other marketing materials.
Indirectly to inform the way you write and speak.
Find ways to highlight your differentiators in everything you write. Work them into your sales calls. Use them to build content themes for your blog, email marketing, and social media posts. Keep them ever-present to maintain a consistent impression in the minds of your audience.
Mission & Brand Promise
Unless you make sweeping changes to your business, market new offers to fit within the parameters of your mission and brand promise. For example, a client who is an operations specialist has this brand promise: "Helping you manage the people and the plan so you can unlock greater freedom, impact, and profit." Whenever she adds a new offer, she should communicate the results she's promising in terms of freedom, impact, and profit.
Core Values
Think about the types of content you post and share and ensure that everything aligns with your values. For example, I have a client for which “Joy” is a core value. This brand’s voice and personality are fun and casual. It would be totally appropriate for this client to share feel-good stories of kindness in the community on social media—or to dedicate every Friday to a reel about things that make their team happy. But for a serious and formal brand that doesn't espouse that value, that content might feel like a mismatch.
2. Delivery of Your Service or Product
Your brand promise is a messaging element that captures what you aim to deliver during each customer interaction. Think about each part of your process, from the first discovery call to offboarding. Ask yourself: are we delivering on the promise? If not, adjust! Or, if you have a product, consider how packaging, how-to videos, or other resources can help you achieve your promise more powerfully.
It's also helpful to consider how your core values influence your business. For example, let’s say you are a realtor with “Build Community” as a core value. You might brainstorm how you could demonstrate that value through your work. Maybe you create a “Welcome to Town” guide for each of your buyers with favorite places and resources. Perhaps you also go the extra mile to make personal introductions between your clients and people you know in town. You may even make donations to community organizations to show that you value the towns in which you work.
I always remind clients to make requesting testimonials a part of their process. Encourage your clients to speak about your big three differentiators in their responses so that you can reinforce those key messages.
3. Strategic Planning
Your mission statement is a piece of internal guiding language. Refer to it regularly as you plan offers, promotions, and other business initiatives. Doing so will ensure that you invest budget and energy in activities that align directly with your core purpose. Similarly, your vision statement can help inspire and guide the overall trajectory of your business.
You'll likely need to include your positioning statement when putting together your official business plan, loan applications, or any other formal business documentation. This messaging element communicates your unique position within the market.
4. Networking
When you are clear about the goal, it's easier to achieve success with anything in life. Your elevator pitches are designed with the goal of communicating your big three in a succinct, clear, and compelling way. These pitches will give you the confidence to know what to say in causal and formal networking opportunities.
Get out there and start road-testing these! I promise it will get easier and feel more natural each time. You don't have to worry about getting them word-perfect, but the main points should remain the same. The consistency will help everyone you speak with walk away with the same impression so that people remember you and mention your name when you aren't in the room!
Beyond that, remember to work your messaging into your contributions during networking meetings, online groups, and forums!
5. Team Leadership
Even if they cannot recite it word for word, each person on your team should understand the core purpose of your business captured in your mission statement and how to apply it to their role. This commitment can make a huge impact on the customer experience.
Here’s an example of a sentence from the mission statement of a bridal salon I worked with: “We are committed to making bridal gown shopping feel comfortable, stress-free, and respectful for all brides.” The front desk staff could live out the mission through personal reminder calls about appointments (stress-free) or by asking each bride's preferred pronouns in the appointment booking form (respectful). Meanwhile, the bridal stylist might ask before adjusting the brides’ garments during a fitting (respectful), keep fitting rooms bright and clean (comfortable), and avoid pressuring brides to buy (stress-free).
In addition to your mission, core values can be excellent tools for keeping your team aligned. You could rotate through core values at monthly team meetings and ask for your team to share examples of how they have lived the value that month, building awareness and commitment.
As you can see, clear brand messaging can create consistency across every aspect of your business—from your work to how you market it and more!
If you're ready to take your business to the next level, read about how I help small businesses and entrepreneurs craft foundational messaging elements to build their brands.