The Complete Brand Messaging Checklist from Workdom

A brand is so much more than just a tagline and a logo. Of course, when you add up all these things that encompass the brand itself, it can feel rather overwhelming. Brand messaging? Brand tone? Brand style? Fortunately, although these things take time to develop, by having a concrete strategy, brand messaging overall can be distilled into a checklist of sorts — a formula or a framework wherein once you go through it, ensures that you have all of the boxes ticked!

So how can you be sure you’re on the right track when it comes to your brand messaging?

Here’s our complete list of the things you’ll need in order to make sure your brand messaging is on point with your target audience.

First, it’s important to note that we’re not delving deep into specific brand assets, like your logo, tagline, typography/style and color scheme. All of those are important, but they’re like the icing on the brand messaging cake — you can’t develop them until you have nailed down the points below.

Your Unique Selling Proposition

One of the most important aspects of building any brand is the USP or unique selling proposition. It’s what’s truly unique about your product or service that makes you different (and worth paying attention to) in a competitive and crowded market.

In other words, your USP answers the customer’s question, “why should I buy from you?” Be careful about competing on superficial things like price, since saying “we’re the cheapest” can easily be attacked by another competitor, and then it’s a race to the bottom — which in turn hurts your revenue and brand. The same applies to quality — it’s an intangible thing and someone, somewhere, can always build a better mousetrap.

Your Brand Promise

A brand promise is a facet of brand messaging. It’s what you want your customers to know about your brand. For example, Domino’s pizza built a brand promise around “30 minutes [delivery] or it’s free”. Even though they haven’t offered that standard for years, they’re still known for it, demonstrating the stick-ability of a good brand promise.

Another example is clothing retailer Men’s Wearhouse. Their brand promise is that they guarantee that you’ll look good in their suits. If you don’t like the fit, style, or look, they make it easy to change it, which gives consumers more confidence when doing business with them, that they’ll get exactly what they want.

Your brand promise answers the questions — what will customers get as a result of doing business with us? And how will they know when they’ve gotten it? How does that reflect on our company?

Your Brand Values

This is what your brand stands for. It’s essentially designed to shore up the previous points in a way that makes it abundantly clear how you differ from your competitors. Even more than that, your brand values should resonate with your target audience. These shared values when meant sincerely, draw you closer to your target audience. As long as you’re able to demonstrate those values through every step of the process, you’ll be able to make genuine connections with the people that share them in which potentially results to building up your customers’ loyalty to your brand.

Your Position

This is where you “fit” in the overall marketplace. Not just in terms of price or quality but in terms of the value you offer. As you might imagine, it’s tied very closely with your unique selling proposition. When you offer a unique experience to your customers, your position helps cement your commitment to making that experience happen for your customers every time they do business with you.

You might even share certain values with other competitors in your space, and that’s perfectly acceptable. What’s going to set you apart is your USP. As you hold true to your values and maintain your brand promise, you’ll naturally find a place where your brand is comfortably “settled”.

Your Authority

Finally, there’s authority, or the proof from outside your company that your brand is every bit the promises, values and statements you’ve made about it. That means getting your customers excited to talk about it. Encourage them to leave testimonials, to share their success with your product or service on social media, and to become something of a “brand ambassador” as a case study.

There are lots of ways to build up authority, but like all good brand messaging initiatives, it takes a consistent effort over time to make it happen and make it stick.

If you need help with any of the points mentioned here or you feel like you’re not quite hitting all of your prospects’ buttons when it comes to writing brand messaging that perfectly fits your company’s style and goals, why not reach out to our senior branding professionals and let our team here at Workdom help you to refine and realize your vision? Contact us today to learn more about the services that we offer and let’s help you get started further your brand’s growth!

Originally published at https://www.workdom.io on June 26, 2020.