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The way your brand communicates is as important as its visual identity. Brand messaging is a standardized way of communicating your value proposition to customers. An effective brand messaging strategy reminds your target audience of:
What value your brand brings to their lives. This can be a problem solved, a desire fulfilled, or a new need addressed.
How you go about adding that value. These are the methods you use that differentiate your offering from competitors.
Your brand’s mission and vision. This is what compels you to do what you do and lays out your ultimate goal.
By creating an ongoing pattern of communication with your target audiences, you can shape your brand story.
1. Know your brand’s value
Your brand’s unique value proposition—what you aim to deliver when someone buys your products or services—is one of the most important parts of your brand message. A strong brand message clearly communicates what your audience will get out of a relationship with your brand.
This information should be reflected in your brand slogan. Even if you don’t put a tagline on display, having a one-liner that speaks to your core brand promise is useful. Your brand messaging ultimately speaks to how you plan to deliver on your value proposition.
Think about what you want your brand to do for potential customers. What are their pain points, and how are you solving them? Refer back to your brand vision or mission statement if you need to. That’ll help you get clarity on the key differentiators that make your brand valuable.
Value proposition example
Let’s take Lolasana, a fitness and yoga studio, as a hypothetical example of an evolving brand identity. The company’s value proposition is, “Wellness is a journey.” The implication is that their studio offers value for those looking to make a long-term change in their lifestyle.
Over the years, Lolasana’s brand slogan has changed due to growth in demand and how they run classes. A more recent slogan is “Wellness where you need it.” This implies that they now offer virtual classes to bring value to clients and future customers looking to work out without leaving their homes.
Lolasana’s marketing messages regularly highlight customer testimonials as well as expert advice on why working out leads to better mental and physical health. The brand narrative is consistent across their content, rooted in key messaging about the value of having easy access to wellness activities.
When crafting your own brand positioning, try to achieve that same level of consistency.
Brand message vs. brand voice
If your brand message is what you have to say to the world, your brand voice is how you go about saying it. Your brand voice brings the personality of your business to life and helps your audience understand your brand and how they relate to it.
For example, your brand’s core message might be “Wellness is a journey.” But your brand voice could be high-energy and positive or soothing and encouraging depending on your business.
2. Understand your audience
Getting to know your audience is essential for developing a successful brand voice. Start by getting a sense of your audience:
Demographic
Needs and pain points
Motivations
Interests and core values
Combine that research with how you want your brand to make people feel. This will all give you a sense of how you want to talk to your audience. This research might also highlight the best touchpoints where you can interact with potential customers or followers.
Answer these questions based on the audiences you’re speaking to:
Should your brand have a sense of humor or be more serious?
Is your audience expecting a more casual or more formal tone?
If your brand were a person you know, who would they be?
Defining your brand’s voice as if it were a person will help you talk in a way that’s more familiar to your audience and make your business more relatable and engaging.
Tone of voice can be different across formats. For example, your tone on social media might be casual and friendly, but a blog might be more educational or informational.
Decide what experience you want your audience to have with your brand and craft your tone of voice around that perception.
Get more tips on designing a brand personality
3. Segment your messaging
When you build your target audience, start to segment it into different personas representing the different audiences that will buy from you. Though your brand message won’t change, you may want to adjust your tone slightly to make sure it resonates with each persona equally.
Imagine you’re running a real estate business. The way you communicate with a first-time homebuyer will be different from the way you communicate with an experienced homeowner. The former will need to know a little bit more about the homebuying process, whereas the latter will want to get straight into the details.
The secret to developing an effective tone of voice is in making sure you deliver a consistent brand message that’s as compelling to one key market as it is to the next. Once you have a consistent message and tone in place, you can apply it anywhere your brand shows up in person or online.
This post was updated on June 2, 2023.