The Basics of Brand Messaging
First and foremost: what is brand messaging? It’s the recognizable way your brand shows up in the world.
Brand messaging basics fill in the details of all the big-picture blanks, like:
- Audience: who you’re showing up for
- Brand Values: how you’re showing up
- Mission: why you’re showing up
- Vision: what you’re showing up to create
And there are 2 main ways to build a brand that connects.
- Start with your vision, then amplify your message to reach your ideal audience.
- Start with the specific people you want to reach, then adapt your vision around meeting their needs.
Regardless of where you start, how you show up in the world depends on the who, how, why, what of your brand. Brand messaging strategy answers these questions and allows you to share your message and mission with ease.
Brand Messaging Basic Elements
When you invest your time, energy, and intention into your brand messaging strategy, something special happens. You start thinking about your business and your purpose in new ways. You show up in a way that’s consistent and clear. And you’re able to step into your brand message with confidence, no matter the context.
And confidence is contagious! If you feel good about what you’re putting out into the world, your customers and industry partners will feel it too—and they may even spread the word on your behalf.
So, what goes into a solid brand messaging strategy? There are six basic elements that I include in each brand messaging guide I co-create with my clients:
- Brand Statement
- Mission Statement
- Brand Values
- Brand Voice
- Target Audience
- Core Messages
Brand Statement
Your brand statement is essentially your elevator pitch, positioning statement, or unique selling proposition. It sums up what you do, who you do it for, why, and ideally, what makes you different.
This can be used in your social media bios, on your boilerplate for press releases or event registration pages, when you introduce yourself in person, and beyond.
Client Example of a Brand Statement
Here’s the original brand statement a client came to me with. The founder is both passionate about her mission and deeply knowledgeable about her industry, but she was struggling to find a concise way to sum up all the moving parts of her business.
ORIGINAL: “We are an impact driven fine jewelry brand that’s not only helping the planet by using recycled precious metal and saving waste throughout our production cycle. But also creating an entirely new paradigm in jewelry industry, and in the way that we buy jewelry by knowing our metals, at the same time we’re also giving back to our community in Bali towards education for every pieces sold.”
We worked together to boil down some of the overarching concepts and remove some of the jargon so that her average customer would instantly understand what the brand has to offer. The first sentence is the one-line summary she can recite to anyone she meets. The second part can be added on if time allows, the person seems interested, or it makes sense in the written context.
UPDATED: “[BRAND] is a fine jewelry brand that creates impact through sustainable materials, ethical employment, and giving back to girls’ education in Indonesia. We’re changing the jewelry industry away from fast fashion toward responsible handmade pieces that use recycled metals and diamonds to protect not only our health, but also the environment.”
Repurposing Your Brand Statement
The brand statement can sometimes feel a bit formal or rigid, but it’s just the big-picture base. You can adapt it for whatever context you’re in. For example, this is one of my client’s full brand statement (which we created together as part of her Messages That Matter VIP Day):
At [BRAND], we partner with you and your small business through modern bookkeeping to bring balance to your books and to your business as a whole. Our guidance gives you confidence to navigate your numbers and embrace your role as CEO to make bold, informed decisions based on the stories your finances tell.
In order to make it short and punchy for her Instagram bio, we pulled out the highlights to showcase what she does and why it matters to the people she serves:
- Modern small biz bookkeeping
- Navigate your numbers, embrace your role as CEO
- Make bold, informed decisions
Mission Statement
Another essential brand messaging basic is your mission statement. This is a guiding force for internal and external decisions, as well as the basis for all communications. It’s your why.
Think about the impact you want to make. Imagine the transformation you can facilitate. Articulate the reason your business exists. That’s what you want to include in a mission statement.
Take LYS Beauty—the first Black-owned clean beauty brand in Sephora. (LYS = Love Yourself, which is very on brand the more you dig into them.) The first thing you see on their About Page is “Our Mission: To Diversify the Clean Beauty Industry”. Pretty bold and nice and clear, right?
Brand Values
If you’ve been around my corner of the internet for any length of time, you know how important brand values are to my approach to business. By standing for your brand values, you’ll stand out in all the right ways. You’ll also attract all the right people and repel all the wrong ones.
You first need to establish the 3-5 core values that matter most to you AND your audience. Then you need to define what they specifically mean to your brand. And most importantly, you need to actively apply your brand values to every area of your business.
Living out your brand values means that you’ll become known for something people can see and feel. It’ll draw your audience, team, and partners closer to your mission. And it’ll push your business toward your impact goals.
Brand Voice
Your brand voice should be consistent across all your outreach and interactions. It’s your recognizable way of communicating that carries through everything, from marketing to customer experience to partnerships.
So even when your tone changes—owning up to a mistake vs sharing a big win—the voice stays the same.
I’ve found sustainable toilet-related brands—like Hello Tushy and Who Gives A Crap*—to be particularly good at capturing their brand voice and using humor to connect people to their important causes.
You can also see the difference between a brand like Reformation (rebellious and chic) and Osmia Organics (trusted and down-to-earth).
Client Example of Brand Voice
In this (internal-facing) excerpt from a client’s brand messaging guide, we got super granular about how she wanted to sound and how she would interact with her audience:
I’m like a college dorm resident advisor—the approachable, empathetic mentor who’s experienced, but not lightyears ahead of you. I want it to feel like you’re coming over for tea to talk shop. More of a mentor than a friend, my goal is to meet you where you’re learning and add a little fun to the process because I’ve been in your shoes.
I’m not afraid to be a little contrarian or disruptive if it feels true-to-me and would help my audience. I’m sarcastic, witty, and to the point, but in a way that shows people why they should care. While I’m slightly self-deprecating, I definitely own who I am as a person, a thought leader, and a business owner. Basically, I walk the talk and hold space for myself to grow.
Target Audience
Your target audience are the people you dream of serving best-case-scenario. Create a detailed customer persona in order to speak directly to this *one specific* type of person who represents an entire audience. Be sure to include both demographic and psychographic factors.
As you niche down your audience, you’ll attract who you’re looking for and repel people who aren’t the right fit. The upside: when you aim for a target audience, you’ll still resonate with additional people outside of that “ideal persona.” But you’ll reach them without wasting the energy of actively seeking out these outliers, or spreading your message too thin.
Once you feel confident and clear about your core audience, you might create multiple personas. This would allow you to tailor different campaigns and offers to different segments.
Regardless, thinking as your ideal customer persona avoids the pitfall of making decisions based on your own personal biases and centers your decisions on what your audience needs and wants from you.
Core Messages
Your core messages are key soundbites that can be recycled, combined, broken down, and adapted infinitely. Think: sales calls, website copy updates, outreach letters/emails, media pitches, networking conversations, video scripts, social media posts, and marketing collateral.
Generally, I divide these core messages into three basic buckets: About The Founder, About The Brand, and About The Offerings. There’s some overlap between each category because they all tie back to your mission, values, and audience. But it’s helpful to approach these topics from many different angles.
Aim to strike a particular chord that resonates with your target audience. Then use that message as a fresh jumping off point to go even deeper and broader.
Creating A Values-Aligned Brand Messaging Strategy
So there you have it: brand messaging basics that allow you to represent and grow your brand. From the bite-sized “marketing speak” messages to your overarching mission, piece together these elements into a complete values-aligned brand messaging strategy.
You can leverage this strategy yourself so that you’re more confident and consistent in talking about your own brand. A brand messaging strategy is also useful to hand over to your social media manager, blog writer, copywriter, VA, customer success team, referral partners. Essentially, anyone else you bring into your inner circle. It gets everyone on the same page.
And once you’ve taken the time to reflect, refer back to your brand messaging guide when making ANY decision. Need to hire a contractor? Refer to the guide. Deciding whether to attend that conference? Refer to the guide. Choosing how to spend your energy on social media? Yep—refer to the guide.
Without fail, if it’s aligned with your mission, values, and audience, you have the green light. If not, it’s an easy no.
And when it comes to values-aligned brand messaging strategy, it’s all about finding the common thread. For me, that’s sharing messages that matter and encouraging confident, meaningful action.
No matter what you choose to stand for, your unique “why” and “how” set you apart. Your brand messaging strategy reinforces what makes you memorable, special, and ultimately trustworthy.
Taking Confident, Meaningful Action
Download the “Stand Up To Stand Out” Kit for a Brand Messaging Workbook that aligns your ideal audience with your “why” and use the Consistency Checklist to lead with your brand values in everything you do.
And if you’re ready for outside perspective and a co-created brand messaging strategy guide that will allow you to get visible with confidence, consistency, and clarity, the Messages That Matter VIP Day is for you.
