Brand Messaging: 4 Essential Components to Strengthen Your Brand

What is Brand Messaging?  

Brand messaging is the art of consistent brand voice. In other words, it is not just how you sound, it is what you say. Brand messaging guidelines are important to establish what your brand sounds like when communicating with your audience, prospects, customers or clients. The unified message allows any supporting copy and marketing points to be consistent in all touchpoints. You are sharing your brand message every time you communicate on:  

• Website 
• Advertisements
• Blog Posts 
• Email marketing 
• Video 
• Packaging  
• Business cards  
• Brochures 
• Social media posts 

As branding influences perceptions about a brand in order to persuade the audience to choose that brand over its competitors. It is important to establish a strong brand messaging, as the verbal brand will inspire response after an introduction. It will appeal to your audiences, from their point of view, and it will clearly express what you deliver. 

64% of consumers say the primary reason they connect with a brand is shared values. 

Essential Components to Strengthen Your Brand 

1. Foundation (Your brand key message)  

Behind every great brand is a fundamental core brand message: a statement that declares why the brand matters, what it stands for and how it is different from competitors. This core brand message will shape all of the subsequent brand marketing messages. Start by going the following checklist to get your messaging framework started:  

• Mission: Your mission statement is a short sentence or two that answers the “why” of your business. In other words, why do you do what you do? 
• Vision Statement :Your vision statement is a forward-looking future goal of what you want to see happen in the world because of the work your company does. In other words, where is your company going? 
• Values: Your values are the guideposts that determine how you do business. If your vision is the ultimate destination, then your values are the map that guide your company’s journey into the future. 
• Voice: Effective brand messaging is more than just what you say, but how you say it. Your brand voice brings the personality of your business to life. 

2. Internal (How you and your team define your brand)  

Brand messaging starts with how you and your team define your brand. Whatever form they take, brand messages have to be relevant to your audiences, and it starts internally with your internal team. Crafting messages that are concise and easy to understand can also be a lot trickier if you have multiple audiences, therefore, you will want to develop key messages that address the interests of each. There may be overlap of messages between audiences, but there will almost certainly be points that are more relevant to one group than to another. Check your brand messages against these following criteria: 

• Does your core brand message offer anything different from your competitors? 
• Are your messages simple, easy to understand and compelling? 
• Do your messages resonate with your target audience? Do they say anything interesting? 

3. External (How the brand message is applied to touch-points)  

Messaging for the general public is what most people think about when they think of brand messaging. These outward-facing messages tend to be more informational and actionable than inward-facing ones, which typically revolve around ideas. External messaging includes these statements: 

• Positioning Statement: If your mission hits the why, your positioning statement hits the what, who and how of your business.  This statement is incredibly vital to the health and success of your brand, primarily because a large number of people will see it. 
• Differentiators: Your differentiators are the things that set your brand apart from your competitors. Your brand strategy and business model will help determine these, but your brand messaging needs to convey them to your customers. 
• Value Propositions: Value propositions are short statements that define what you can do for your customers- or what the value of your business or product is. You’ll likely have more than one, and if you have several customer segments, you can have different value propositions for each. 

4. Consistency (Upkeep and revisiting the brand message)  

Your brand lives in the mind of your audience. Ultimately, your brand message is everything you want your audience to understand about your brand. It’s a well you return to again and again for when the brand needs to be aligned and reminded for inspiration and what the brand stands for. If your brand message is not strategically developed to shape all of these touch points, then your brand will be misaligned and inconsistent both of which lead to confusion, then distrust.