FREELANCERS UNION BLOG

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How to effectively and consistently tell your brand's story

Brand messaging is a business MUST. If your brand’s message is well-developed and cohesive, it’s a lot easier to communicate with your customers and call them to action.

Additionally, if your brand’s message is consistent, your customers will flock to you no matter how you communicate with them. Brand messaging has a core goal: to explain why customers should choose you over your competitors.

Great brand messaging is a hybrid between a tagline and a vision statement or customer relationship management and call-to-action marketing. It’s the unremitting story of what makes your business unique and why customers should remain loyal to you.

Spreading your brand’s message requires you to dabble with multimedia exposure. You’ll communicate your story online in your web content and on social media. You’ll share your message in printed ads and publications. You’ll tell your story during radio or television interviews. You’ll also discuss your business in person at meetings or social events.

If your brand’s messaging seems ineffective, it may have a lot to do with the message itself or the fact that you’re using the message incorrectly. Your message must align with your medium without shifting the main point: “support this business because xyz”.

Here’s how to maintain one brand message across multiple outlets:

Develop + reinforce your brand message

Your brand’s message needs to grab your targeted audience’s attention and never let them go. They need to fall in love with your story.

To do this effectively, study your audience and their behaviors. Learn about their questions, interests, needs and curiosities, then study your brand. Learn about how your brand addresses the customer’s thoughts and actions.

That is your brand message—the thing that needs to remain constant.

Now, take this message and add dimension with case studies, testimonials, pictures, interviews, videos, captions, etc. to reinforce it across multiple outlets. These are your first steps to taking one consistent message and spreading it everywhere.

Match your message with your outlet

Difficulty engaging with your customers could be a reflection of weak brand messaging or how and where you apply your brand message. Different mediums require different communication styles.

Even with digital engagement such as social media, Twitter calls for quicker to-the-point interaction while Facebook allows for lengthier “forum” style engagement. As is the case with print media, which requires great storytelling and easy-on-the-eye formatting whereas in-person communication calls for articulation and personality.

Know the point of your brand’s story

What is it that you’re trying to get your consumers to think or feel? This feeling should always be your goal, regardless if your message shows up in print or a tweet.

Try thinking about the key points of your brand’s goals, then reinforce it using long messages (think a paragraph) and short messages (think about a caption). Does it tell the same story? If it does, then your brand’s message is clear and cohesive, and your consumers will be able to identify it.

If your story shifts the more in-depth you get with telling it, start over and re-focus on your message’s key points. Once you’ve got the key points down, use the longer messages for print and in-person communication and the shorter messages for digital and radio/TV communication.

Use the same adjectives

If you use words like “amazing”, “outstanding” or “dynamic” as a part of your brand’s online message, then it paints the picture of your brand being zippy or fanciful.

Don’t confuse your audience by switching your printed message to words like “thoughtful”, “conservative” or “simple”, which connotes a more relaxed and down-to-earth brand. You want to evoke the same feeling, regardless of how your message shows up.

Figure out your brand’s adjectives and maintain them in describing your brand’s story.

Go for the win

Smart brand messages are short, memorable and explain the product or service. Similar to a tagline, you want to use your words wisely. Don’t add fillers and fluff. Don’t try to make it catchy, yet it lacks substance.

A winning brand message goes above a tagline by actually incorporating what you do.

Nike’s brand messaging is about turning athletes into high-performance sports heroes and creating products that inspire sports lovers to become champions. This is the story they tell in their television commercials whether it features Michael Jordan or a high-school track star as well as their printed ads.

Elevate your tagline by making sure you mention your product, demographic and desirable outcome—then you’ll have a winning brand message.

In short, don’t confuse your audience by changing your brand messaging. Simply change how you share your brand’s message and make sure that your message matches the outlet’s tone and style.

This is a post from our SPARK sponsor, 17Hats. 17Hats is the complete and fully integrated system for managing a small business. Freelancers Union members get up to 20% off certain plans. Learn more here.

Shannon Baylor-Henderson Shannon Baylor-Henderson is a content connoisseur. She blogs at InkPensNCoffeeCups.com, and she’s the founder of ImShannon.com, where she helps entrepreneurs look good on paper.

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