As a child you go from babbles to dadas, mamas to hellos — all while you grow to develop a full index of vocabulary words that give you the necessary tools to communicate with the people you love. Brands are like babies, you create them and then nurture them, but eventually, you need to help them learn to speak.
And so you develop brand messaging.
Brand messaging reflects your brand’s personality and how you want to be perceived. Are you an expert? Are you fun? Are you sophisticated? Are you friendly? It defines the essence of your brand — who you are and your personality — with words.
Brand messaging ensures you are saying or writing the right things in alignment with who you are and what your brand stands for. It’s essential your brand comes across clearly to your customers. Typically, they want three things from your product or service:
By establishing a clear brand messaging framework, you are defining how people will feel and think about your business. You’re making a promise and letting consumers know what will be reflected upon them if they engage with you.
Your brand is what others say about you when you’re not in the room, so use your brand messaging framework to help guide that narrative. You want to reflect to your audience the core of who you are before they make their own assumptions.
The worst thing you can do for your brand is underestimate the power of messaging. Without brand messaging, you may struggle to express why you matter and thus become invisible to potential customers. Brand messaging tells your story, establishes trust with your audience, distinguishes you from your competitors, and helps establish your company culture. Let’s break some of this down:
Brand messaging connects with customers in a deeper way.
With an established brand messaging framework you may notice improved customer engagement. Your audience desires a relevant and strong bond with a brand. As we mentioned above, they are looking for a brand that understands them and aligns with their values — a brand they can trust. A strong messaging platform will allow them to find a connection and teach them how to best communicate with others about your brand.
Consistency in marketing materials.
Say you have three designers or different departments all creating marketing collateral while not communicating, having an established brand messaging framework will keep your work consistent. The guidelines will ensure employees working within your company and those working for agencies or outside vendors will know exactly how to speak your brand’s language, no matter what they are creating.
Stand out amongst the crowd.
The goal of your brand messaging is to be unique as well as established. Your brand messaging has the potential to be the one major thing differentiating you from a nearby competitor. Take advantage! Use your messaging platform to get one inch further ahead. Your unique story is what sets you apart and what will allow you to outgrow your competition.
Before you dive into the messaging framework, you need to first establish your key message. This is the answer to the audience’s question “What’s in it for me?” Why should your audience take notice of your brand? What are you doing differently? How are you going to impact your audience’s lives? What challenges are you solving for them? Now that’s all very technical — the ‘whats’ of your key messaging. But what about the ‘whys?’ Why should your audience care about your services or want to do business with you? This is an opportunity for you to brainstorm the more emotional side of your product or service as well. What do you believe in? What’s important to you? What do you value?
Ultimately, your core message or value proposition, the deepest part of what you do and who you are, will inform the rest of your messaging framework. It showcases what your company can give consumers that competitors can’t.
Use what you’ve established as you’ve thought about your core messaging and value proposition to start on your framework. Your brand messaging framework will consist of multiple points within your key messaging, all representing how your brand speaks and what it believes.
Brand Story/Manifesto
For some, this is the first step. We often provide a brand story or manifesto when first embarking on a branding project here at AOR. It helps set the tone for the brand and as a plus, gets everyone excited. What does your name mean? What do you represent within your community? Who are you? What do you do for your consumers? What are you built from?
⭐ Take a look at some of our work with Copper Yards to see how a manifesto or short manifesto statement can add to your brand messaging.
Mission & Vision
Your mission statement defines the purpose of your business — how you want to make the world a better place for your customers. The vision statement is one line that defines the purpose behind a brand’s existence. It is a brand looking forward and saying what it hopes to achieve through its mission statement.
⭐ Take a look at some of our work with CSU Spur to see what these statements look like when they come to life.
Tone & Voice
Your tone and voice are the written and verbal expressions of your brand. Once you’ve established who you are — fun, professional, approachable, or honest, whatever your descriptive words are, they need to be reflected in how you speak to your customers through marketing materials or otherwise. Your tone is how you come across and your voice is your vocabulary. In other words, your tone is how you express your brand voice. For example, if you are a comfortable and easygoing property manager then your vocabulary is approachable. If you are an efficient and consistent property manager then your vocabulary is professional. See what we mean? For a deeper look into tone and voice (both of which we believe are essential to your brand messaging framework) check out this insight.
Brand Personality
Similarly to tone and voice, brand personality is a reflection of how you come across to your audience. Are you client-focused and hospitable? Are you genuine and caring? Are you dedicated and reliable? Many keywords from your brand personality section may overlap with your tone and voice vocabulary.
Core Values
Some companies choose to share their core values externally, and some have a separate set internally, but at the end of the day, your core values are an important guiding light for your brand messaging moving forward. They define the beliefs that you, as a company, stand for. They are a key part of helping your customers connect with your vision, your values, and your overall brand.
⭐ Take a look at our work with Koelbel for an example of core values at work.
Key Differentiators
As if your entire messaging platform isn’t enough to set you apart from competitors, having a set of key differentiators doesn’t hurt in the long run. Consumers are looking for definitive reasons to choose your product or service over a competitor and this is an opportunity for you to spell it out for them. Really evaluate your business value proposition and think about what it is that sets you apart. What can you offer your customers that no one else can? What do you value that other companies may not value? What makes you the right choice? This is where you put all your best cards on the table and convince your customers to choose you.
Your brand messaging framework should be visible throughout every aspect of your business. From slogans and taglines to press releases, and content marketing to social media. There can be no shortcuts. Your tone & voice, core messages, mission statements, and core values should be present in everything you do related to your brand. It should be easy for your customers to point you out from the crowd. They should be able to look at a statement or paragraph on a brochure and know you wrote it without being told. That’s the power of brand messaging. It’s just as recognizable as a logo when done properly.
Safe to say it’s something to consider? It’s an important first step when we start on a branding project here at AOR, and honestly, also one of the most fun. We love to dig into who you are as a company and really learn what makes you tick, what you value, and what you want your customers to think about when they hear your name. Once you start to see your brand messaging framework come together, everything starts to get very exciting.
Let us know if you want to learn more or chat about what brand messaging could mean for your product or service specifically. Let’s talk!