What is the one thing that should tie together every piece of content and marketing materials you create for your company and your clients? Brand messaging. This refers to the underlying value proposition conveyed and language used in your content. It’s what makes buyers relate to your brand by inspiring them, persuading them, motivating them and ultimately making them want to buy your product.
Promotional Consultant Today shares these definitions of the key elements of a brand message framework.
Brand Promise. Your brand promise should be targeted toward the customer, indicate your vision and convey what you actually do. It’s often the memorable tagline associated with your product or service.
Positioning Statement. Your positioning statement defines where you fit into the marketplace. This can help guide both your internal and external messaging.
Target Audience. Hopefully, this part isn’t new. Throughout this process, it’s important to keep your ideal buyers in mind so that you’re always working toward messaging that will resonate with their needs, motivations, interests and pain points.
Mission. Your mission statement takes a more visionary angle. What do you hope to accomplish? What is your ultimate goal? What are your core beliefs?
Tone of Voice. This is especially important for the copywriting part of your messaging. Define the tone that you want to use for your brand. Are you going for more of a fun, playful brand? Is your audience made up of c-level execs, and therefore requires a more serious tone? Don’t be afraid to have fun with tone that is most appropriate for your business.
Elevator Pitch. How would you describe your brand in 30, 60 or 90 seconds? This exercise can go a long way toward simplifying your brand messaging.
Brand Pillars. This describes the three most important selling points of your product. Keep in mind the customer, internal and competitive angles discussed earlier. Each brand pillar will then be supported by a key benefit statement and supporting examples. These pillars will really inform the focus points of your marketing content.
Once you’ve filled in each of the items above (or used a messaging chart of your own), you’ll have a solid messaging framework in place. Use it to make sure your go-to-market messages are all consistent, and to tie all of your pieces of content together.
Source: Jenna Hanington is a senior content strategist at Pardot, where she specializes in content creation and copywriting. Her articles have been featured on blogs for Pardot, Salesforce, ExactTarget, B2Community, Convince & Convert, VentureBeat and Capterra, as well in as the book, Understanding Social Media: How to Create a Plan for Your Business That Works.
