Telling the simple story of our products, services, and businesses isn’t just a matter of understanding how and why those products, services, and businesses work.
It’s a matter of understanding what our audience needs to know about the product, service, and/or business and at what stage of the sales funnel they need to know it. This is why developing strong brand messaging is so tricky—and so important.
First, to be clear,
It includes:
Unlike marketing messages—which are more directly promotional and can change depending on your target audience’s demographic, for example—brand messaging is consistent.
No wonder it has a lot to do with making your company (and the content it produces) recognizable and memorable.
Just in case you’re amid your own brand messaging conundrums, here’s a simple look at how to start defining and developing your messaging.
As with any other content strategy project, the starting point for brand messaging development is discovery. During discovery, you’ll want to, at a minimum:
And, if you really want to rock your messaging project, here are a couple of ways to dig deeper:
When it comes to telling your story to clients, it’s important to keep it simple. But when it comes to messaging development discovery, there’s no such thing as too much information. Review, interview, audit, and read as much as possible within budget, timeline, and reason. And while you’re sifting through the assets and interviews, don’t forget to take tons of notes and highlight important points, recurring themes, and critical language along the way.
After discovery, create a basic outline of your product, service, or business story. Try to keep it to three to five key points with supporting information. These will be your brand pillars.
If you’re unsure which messages are key to your brand, focus on the what, why, and how: What do you do? Why does it matter? And how do you get it done?
Still stuck? Try answering these questions in a succinct way, and your key messages might start to take shape:
Additionally, brainstorm differentiators. What sets your product, service, or brand apart from competitors or alternatives?
Answering these questions should yield the makings of a:
Once you know your key messages or points, your next task is to figure out how to communicate them. This stage of the process is really about:
During this stage, I often write out my three to five key messages, write a sample sentence or paragraph explaining each message, and list key phrases relevant to that message. This helps stakeholders understand the context and what a message might look like on the page—and it helps authors understand how to communicate your messaging.
If you need some inspiration for your own messaging to help you through this process, it can be helpful to analyze what other companies are doing. Let’s look at how some top brands are approaching brand messaging.
First up, there’s Nike, which does a great job of highlighting its brand values with the famous “just do it” tagline.
However, those core values, which center around inspiring people to take action, aren’t just used in its tagline. They’re carried throughout Nike’s messaging, creating a distinct, recognizable, and consistent voice for the company.
Another global favorite, Apple is among the most innovative brands of our time. Remember the “think different” slogan?
As with Nike, Apple applies the “think different” angle and concept to all of its messaging, positioning its products as the future of technology and/or ways to gain power and status.
As its motto “food with integrity” highlights, Chipotle’s core message centers on the quality and ethical production of its food.
Across its website, ads, and other communications, the brand strategically uses repetition of certain words such as “real,” along with a consistently down-to-earth (or real) brand voice to reinforce the message.
Once you have your messaging in place, your language perfected, and your storyline honed, the next step is to put that messaging to practical use by including it in:
For an initial messaging project, it’s usually a good idea to create one or two of these assets from the messaging and include at least one round of revisions after stakeholders have seen how the messaging works within your assets. Reading a list of key points can be a very different experience from hearing an elevator pitch or reading a marketing concept, even though the key points are included.
Now all that’s left to do is start your project. When it comes to messaging, remember to:
Once you do this, you can use GatherContent to share your messaging guidelines with everyone involved in content production or reviews.
For example, you can link to the guidelines in your custom content templates or even add the most important reminders as checklists for assignees to work from for the sake of compliance.
This will ensure that your brand messaging strategy work doesn’t go to waste and that everyone is on the same page about what your core message is and how to present it to your target audience.
Telling the simple story of our products, services, and businesses isn’t just a matter of understanding how and why those products, services, and businesses work.
It’s a matter of understanding what our audience needs to know about the product, service, and/or business and at what stage of the sales funnel they need to know it. This is why developing strong brand messaging is so tricky—and so important.
First, to be clear,
It includes:
Unlike marketing messages—which are more directly promotional and can change depending on your target audience’s demographic, for example—brand messaging is consistent.
No wonder it has a lot to do with making your company (and the content it produces) recognizable and memorable.
Just in case you’re amid your own brand messaging conundrums, here’s a simple look at how to start defining and developing your messaging.
As with any other content strategy project, the starting point for brand messaging development is discovery. During discovery, you’ll want to, at a minimum:
And, if you really want to rock your messaging project, here are a couple of ways to dig deeper:
When it comes to telling your story to clients, it’s important to keep it simple. But when it comes to messaging development discovery, there’s no such thing as too much information. Review, interview, audit, and read as much as possible within budget, timeline, and reason. And while you’re sifting through the assets and interviews, don’t forget to take tons of notes and highlight important points, recurring themes, and critical language along the way.
After discovery, create a basic outline of your product, service, or business story. Try to keep it to three to five key points with supporting information. These will be your brand pillars.
If you’re unsure which messages are key to your brand, focus on the what, why, and how: What do you do? Why does it matter? And how do you get it done?
Still stuck? Try answering these questions in a succinct way, and your key messages might start to take shape:
Additionally, brainstorm differentiators. What sets your product, service, or brand apart from competitors or alternatives?
Answering these questions should yield the makings of a:
Once you know your key messages or points, your next task is to figure out how to communicate them. This stage of the process is really about:
During this stage, I often write out my three to five key messages, write a sample sentence or paragraph explaining each message, and list key phrases relevant to that message. This helps stakeholders understand the context and what a message might look like on the page—and it helps authors understand how to communicate your messaging.
If you need some inspiration for your own messaging to help you through this process, it can be helpful to analyze what other companies are doing. Let’s look at how some top brands are approaching brand messaging.
First up, there’s Nike, which does a great job of highlighting its brand values with the famous “just do it” tagline.
However, those core values, which center around inspiring people to take action, aren’t just used in its tagline. They’re carried throughout Nike’s messaging, creating a distinct, recognizable, and consistent voice for the company.
Another global favorite, Apple is among the most innovative brands of our time. Remember the “think different” slogan?
As with Nike, Apple applies the “think different” angle and concept to all of its messaging, positioning its products as the future of technology and/or ways to gain power and status.
As its motto “food with integrity” highlights, Chipotle’s core message centers on the quality and ethical production of its food.
Across its website, ads, and other communications, the brand strategically uses repetition of certain words such as “real,” along with a consistently down-to-earth (or real) brand voice to reinforce the message.
Once you have your messaging in place, your language perfected, and your storyline honed, the next step is to put that messaging to practical use by including it in:
For an initial messaging project, it’s usually a good idea to create one or two of these assets from the messaging and include at least one round of revisions after stakeholders have seen how the messaging works within your assets. Reading a list of key points can be a very different experience from hearing an elevator pitch or reading a marketing concept, even though the key points are included.
Now all that’s left to do is start your project. When it comes to messaging, remember to:
Once you do this, you can use GatherContent to share your messaging guidelines with everyone involved in content production or reviews.
For example, you can link to the guidelines in your custom content templates or even add the most important reminders as checklists for assignees to work from for the sake of compliance.
This will ensure that your brand messaging strategy work doesn’t go to waste and that everyone is on the same page about what your core message is and how to present it to your target audience.
Gigi is a content strategist and web writer specializing in travel, technology, education, non-profit, and wellness content. In 2010, she quit her agency job and started Content for Do-Gooders, where she helps clients solve messy content problems around the world. You should follow her on Twitter.