Brand message (brand messaging). How to create it?

Seven seconds. That’s how long it takes on average for people to evaluate and form a first opinion about a brand, offer, or service. You could say that this is the most important moment in your communication strategy. You need to be able to make the most of this time. Whether it’s just your first contact with a brand or you want to refresh your current message, building a convincing brand messaging will help you achieve your communication and then marketing goals. If you want to learn how to build a good brand message and how to use it, keep reading!

What is the brand message?

The brand message is a way of communicating a brand’s values, identity, or mission, in a way unique and distinct from other companies. In practice, all external and internal communication around the company should be consistent with the main brand message.

Brand message.

The brand message structure is a set of guidelines that will help identify your brand, as well as keep your message consistent when creating marketing assets, such as:

• Web site
• E-mailing
• Social media posts and ads
• Search engine advertising
• Mission and company values
• Video
• Out of home
• SEO
• Blog
• Local advertising

In today’s digital marketing, the use of a single marketing channel is already rare. A HubSpot survey shows that 92% of marketers use more than one channel. In 2022. 81% use more than three

Why the brand message is important?

Brand message plays a key role in virtually every aspect of a company’s operations and is essential to the communication (marketing) plan. A strong and consistent brand message also means more effective advertising campaigns and a better return on investment.

This is confirmed  by statistics:

• 81% of consumers need to trust a brand to consider buying from it
• Consumers overwhelmingly defined brand loyalty as repeat purchases (67.8%), followed by brand „love” (39.5%), and finally preference despite the price (37.7%)
• Consumers pay more for brands they trust
• Consistent branding across all channels can increase a company’s revenue by 10% to 20%

The data proves that brand messaging can be a powerful tool when you’re trying to convince potential customers to do business with you. What’s more, having a strong brand communication framework will put you ahead of other competitors.

Time to build your brand message!

Feeling lost in the maze of marketing slang? Contact us and we will prepare a clear process for you and work out a communication strategy.

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How to create a brand message structure?

You can base your brand message structure on a model consisting of seven points:

1. Start with your brand mission

A company’s mission statement is an expression of its core values and goals, which define what the company does, how it does it, and why it does it. It can also include information about the company’s location and its target market or audience.

The mission statement reflects the company’s values, philosophy, and competitive advantage You can use the following questions to build your version of a mission statement:

The mission statement can be used to build a mission statement for your company.

• What does your company do? The answer should include the core business of your company.
• How does it do it? The answer should be a value-based description of how you operate and what you want to achieve.
• The answer should be a value-based description of how you operate and what you want to achieve.
• Who does it do it for? The answer describes your primary target group.
• What are your core company values? The answer is „why” your company exists.

2. Set goals

Your goals will indicate what you ultimately want to achieve with your brand message. These aren’t just short-term goals like increasing website traffic, but especially long-term goals like becoming a leader in a particular market. In working on goals, the reason why people should believe you, the so-called reason to believe, will be important.

For example, if one of your goals is to get more leads, you will probably want to increase traffic to your site so that potential customers can fill out a contact form or call your company. With this in mind, you can create a brand message that encourages customers with the „everything available online 24/7” process.

Consumers today are increasingly aware and are looking for companies that have a mission and purpose that is meaningful to them or in some way reflects their own values (and need to identify). When your consumers know what you’re all about and want to get involved, you gain both. In other words, „generating profit” may be a good business goal, but not the sole mission and message of the brand.

3. Research your target market

Brand messaging is not just about what you say, but how you say it and to whom. Knowing your target audience is key to creating the perfect brand message that resonates with them, relates to them, and ultimately convinces them to buy or cooperate. Think of the ideal customer and describe them on different levels:

• appearance
• lifestyle
• work
• income
• family and friends
• devices or platforms
• entertainment
• types of content or brands it likes

The persona you create can include names or even photos, and most importantly, collections of behaviors, likes, habits, interests, skills, and other relevant information. This helps you define a detailed target audience, which ultimately helps you reach the right people with your brand message and establish an emotional connection with them. Analyzing the group’s behavior and their actual needs creates the so-called consumer insight

4. Analyze your competitor’s brand message

A more attractive product or a better price isn’t beneficial if your ideal customers don’t even know it exists. To get noticed, you need to stand out. By analyzing how your competitors talk about you, you gain the information you need to create your own effective brand message.

The message of a competitive brand is the words, images, and emotions your rivals use to communicate with your target audience. Analyzing them can help you identify gaps, opportunities, and threats in your own brand strategy.

First, create a list of 3-5 competitors and start evaluating their market position, pricing structure, differentiators, brand message, and key messages. What can they do that you can’t? What can you do that they can’t? During this process, it’s important to remain unbiased – treat this as a learning process that will strengthen your company’s brand.

5. Create brand message guidelines

As I mentioned earlier, a brand communication framework is basically a set of guidelines that will help you shape your marketing communications. You will need a set of standards that will make it easy for your team to follow your brand guidelines. This will include all the elements that are recommended, but also those that cannot be used!

A brand guide (as we can laboriously call these guidelines) should include a core message that summarizes your brand’s personality in a few words, a list of characteristics describing how you want to sound, information on what to say and what not to say, a matrix showing how you adapt your message tone to different scenarios and emotions, and a style guide with grammar, punctuation and formatting rules for your brand. The shorter the set of guidelines, the better reception you can expect within your organization. Creating dozens of pages of guidelines will only hinder the entire process, making it complicated and difficult to implement.

6. Identify keywords and calls to action

To easily keep your brand message in the marketing funnel, try sticking to a short list of keywords and calls to action that your team can return to and expand upon as needed. This will help ensure consistency in your brand message over time, as you’ll consistently use the same core terms that reinforce your company’s goal. In addition, ideally, your brand message is consistent with your SEO strategy, so your brand message on online resources can help you rank for the best keywords.

7. Follow the 3Cs rule

The most successful brands usually stick to the 3C model: consistency, clarity, and character, which means consistency, clarity, and character (identity).

Consistency: your brand message should be consistent across every dimension or channel, and should reinforce your unique personality. The opposite of this guideline is chaotic communication, a copy taken out of context, making it difficult for customers to recognize your company and associate it with your intended characteristics.

Clarity: your brand message should be 100% clear, without using guesswork. Clear also means concise, allowing the same communication to transfer seamlessly across different devices, platforms, or formats.

Character: Don’t be afraid to get creative with your brand message to make your company stand out!

When and how to use a brand message structure?

After you’ve built your own brand communication scheme, it’s time to put it into practice! When not to use a brand communication structure? Let’s start with when you don’t necessarily need to refer to the brand message structure. There are several such areas, for example: Influencer work Nowadays, it is very easy to spot inauthentic or forced content. If you want influencer-sponsored content that aligns with your brand, try not to force the influencer to follow every framework of your brand’s message. Instead, find influencers with a communication style that aligns with your brand, and trust them to create a post that best appeals to their audience (i.e., ultimately those you’re trying to reach) Partnerships This is an area where you may need to find a compromise when combining your marketing initiatives with another company. Recipients should be inspired to collaborate (seeing the upside from the synergy), not confused about who is who. How to use brand message structure? You should use a developed framework every time you want to create or edit business, marketing, or creative content. This also applies to all visual identity materials or display ad formats. Make sure the brand messaging schema is publicly available and easy to implement. Be sure to communicate the guidelines to each new person on the team. Make sure to communicate the guidelines to each new person on the team.

Examples of brand messaging

Mastercard

MasterCard is one of the most innovative financial brands producing credit, debit, prepaid, and gift cards. With many alternatives to choose from, MasterCard knew it needed a strong message. As early as 1997, the company created its famous slogan, which still applies today. What began as Mastercard’s „Priceless” advertising campaign has become the company’s full-fledged identity. From the company’s slogan, it is clear that you can use MasterCard to make almost any purchase, and the cards are reliable and invaluable. The message also leaves room for imagination, which is why it has stuck with so many people. „There are things that money can’t buy”. – emotionally strongly affects the consumer and remains in the memory. When you think of what money can’t buy, you probably think of family, friends, experiences, and memories. This slogan makes readers reminisce and trust that MasterCard is more than just a company. MasterCard is more than just a company.

Nike

The Nike company has always valued the athletic lifestyle and the dedication and passion that translates into sports performance. Their simple slogan „Just Do It” perfectly expresses this motivation and determination. A newer version of the message reads slightly differently „Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” This idea is fully in line with the brand promise.