Taglines Set the Tone for Your Brand Identity

What is a Tagline?

A tagline gives a voice to your brand.  It’s the immediate message your customer learns about your business.  Having a tagline is an easy way to set the tone of your brand identity and every brand should have one. So, what is a tagline? It is the mission, value or culture of your company in one short phrase.  It is what sums up your business’s purpose and why you do what you do.

What is Brand Identity?

Your brand identity is how your customers envision you.  Having a strong brand identity is important for success and to make your business stand out amongst the competition. Strong brand identity:

• Communicates your company culture and expresses your company mission
• Allows customers to differentiate you from your competition
• Portrays a positive image of your product and/or services that influences purchasing decisions
• Builds trust and loyalty with your customers
• Communicates the message of quality, service and sustainability of your product

Why Taglines Are Important to Brand Identity

A great tagline is both value-driven and memorable.  These two components drive customer loyalty. The customer needs to see the value of your product or service and then be able to define you quickly amongst the competition. In one simple phrase, you can leave a memorable mark of your brand identity.

Think of all the memorable taglines stuck in your head that immediately recall a brand. Classics such as “Just do it” or “It melts in your mouth not in your hands” and others synonymous with their brands. Something catchy but memorable makes a big statement about who your company is and what it sells, but you want to make sure that your tagline is on point.  You don’t want your tagline to just be any catchy statement that doesn’t translate the mission of your company goals. Don’t forget that a tagline can be a customer’s first impression of your business.

How to Write a Great Tagline to Enhance Brand Identity

Taglines can have a powerful connection to your brand identity if you allow them to be a story about your brand, as well as a mission about your company, that is to the point but still connected to your audience. To do this, it is best to keep your tagline short, consistent and with a focus on what makes you different than your competition.  A tagline is a permanent expression of your company’s greater purpose or mission and should help define your brand or inspire your audience to take an action.

In comparison, a slogan may seem similar but is only used as a temporary marketing effort.  A great example of a memorable slogan that accomplished this is “The Breakfast of Champions” from Wheaties. They had a great slogan and then added famous athletic champions to their packaging.  The Wheaties brand used its slogan and endorsements to stand out from competitors, while still speaking to the benefits of their cereal.    

Taglines should focus on why a consumer should buy from you. So, making it memorable and relatable to the brand is especially important. Here are some things to keep in mind when your writing a great tagline:

• Keep the message simple and to the point.
• Don’t be generic. Form a creative, memorable line that can identify with your business.
• Be original. Make sure that no one else is using the same phrase.
• Remember that a tagline applies to your whole business and not a single product or service.
• Ensure your unique value to your customer or your company’s mission is in the statement.

Taglines can make a real difference to how your customer perceives your company.  They can leave a lasting impression for not just a moment but for years.  They tell your company story and let the customer know what value you bring or the problem you solve.  This is why it is important for all businesses to have a tagline and to have a professional agency who understands your business to assist you. If your business needs branding or tagline advice contact Strategic Marketing at 561-688 8155.

Your personal brand is your story. Similar to how corporate brands communicate value to the customer, a personal brand does the same for the individual. Businesses, influencers, coaches, actors and many others benefit from personal branding. This paints a picture for others of what your values are, what you stand for, how you communicate, your brand personality and more. It is the unique story that makes you…you! How you promote this is how people will perceive your brand and how they will relate to you. Developing a personal brand is now crucial for cultivating customer relationships and is integral in your online presence. Below are just some ways that you can evolve your personal brand whether you are a business owner, social media influencer or any other public entity.

WHO ARE YOU?

The first step in personal branding is to identify who you are. This can be done systematically by asking questions like:

• What things are important to me?
• Which core values apply to me?
• What motivates me every day?
• Which interests do I have passion for?
• What do I want people to know about you?
• How do I want people to see you?
• What do people compliment me on?
• What drains my energy?

Use these and other questions to develop a framework for who you are. This is going to be the foundation of how you will interact with others and how you wish to be seen. Answering some of these can be tough. A good trick is to ask those closest to you how they would answer. The answers to these are not set in stone. They may expand as you grow in your career. However, totally changing ideologies should be avoided. Do your best to be true to yourself in these answers.

WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?

Personal branding is ABOUT you, but it is FOR your audience. In order to reach the people you wish to reach, you must first identify who those people are. Your messaging, tactics and approach will need to cater to the people who you are looking for. A person who is an influencer may be looking for followers, while an entrepreneur may be looking for recruiters. One may leverage fun social media hashtags while the other may wish to focus on building LinkedIn connections. Reaching a follower on Facebook would require a much more casual approach than reaching a recruiter on LinkedIn. Once you’ve identified an audience, use a similar approach of asking questions to build an audience profile. What does your audience like? Which forms of social media do they use most? What are their interests? What do they want to hear? Where can you find them? This is useful to identify which techniques you can leverage to reach this audience.

CREATING & MANAGING CONTENT

Consistency in your content strategy is a great thing. However if you are spending a ton of time creating content that only gets 10 views or 2 shares then you are wasting time in your organic efforts. Create quality content with a purpose and make sure people are seeing it by utilizing a true content strategy, complete with a budget. Adding dollars to boost your post, video or article will allow your existing content to be seen by more, new people than posting to the same audience every day. This will be key in building and growing your following, and reaching the right people at the right time. If you’ve created content that is useful, relevant to your audience and true to your personal branding, invest in your message by adding a budget behind it!

How can you be sure you’re creating meaningful content? Working with an advertising agency like Strategic Marketing will help you hone in on your focus and your messaging. We specialize in creating content that reaches the right people and take the load of consistent creation off your hands by handling the process every month. The best part is that we can tell you how your content is doing and make adjustments that meet your needs.

NETWORKING

Another important part of personal branding is networking. Make sure to develop, cultivate and maintain your professional circle. LinkedIn is an excellent resource to meet new people and create professional relationships. Not only will this open the door to new opportunities for you but will also be  your chance to ask industry professionals about how they do what they do. The more people you can add to your social circle the more you can garner influence and grow a recognizable personal brand. Another effective way to network is to attend events and conferences that are relevant to your industry, values or product. Don’t be shy about going up and introducing yourself!

PROFESSIONAL SITES

Ensure that your LinkedIn, website, Twitter or any other platform is complete and presented with sophistication. In personal branding, your online presence is just as important as a business’s website. Tailor your information to be comprehensive of what you want people to know about you and make sure it is always up to date. Choose excellent photos and pay close attention to detail. Incomplete profiles and subpar personal websites will give an unprofessional appearance to those who may come across your personal brand. Partnering with a marketing agency to handle your professional website will help you make sure that you make the best first impression.

Overall, your personal brand requires a lot of self-awareness and asking yourself the correct questions. Working with an agency like Strategic Marketing can help you with the process of identifying your personal brand, focus and elements. From there, an agency will help you achieve the level of sophistication and professionalism that your brand deserves and ensure that your message reaches the right people with carefully curated marketing tactics. Visit us for a marketing evaluation at thinkstrategic.com.

Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and pushy sales websites. Today’s consumers and the search engines they use are looking for relevance, content and value. It is imperative to engage your audience and develop a strong web presence to build trust with your users. These measures will hopefully convert them to customers. The main benefits of blogging support these core values, providing a boost to your business with minimal investment. Listed below are the six benefits of blogging for your business and how leveraging them can score more customers.

BLOGS DRIVE WEBSITE TRAFFIC

One of the most noteworthy benefits of blogging is the noticeable impact to search engine optimization (SEO). Think of your core website pages, how many there are and how often these are updated. The answer to both of these is likely – not a lot. Each blog added creates pages for search engines to index, fresh content for crawling and “gold stars” for your website’s presence. Additionally, each blog is an opportunity to leverage keywords that would otherwise be awkwardly included on your website’s front end.

In years past, SEO practices involved inserting every desired keyword search into one page, so your website would show up for searches, relevant or not. Algorithms have since evolved to penalize this technique and recognize pages utilizing keywords in a more natural, relevant manner. Now that best practices call for one keyword per page, where to put the additional keywords you’d like to use? The blog, of course! The benefits of blogging include new website real estate with necessary content for ranking in relevant searches, as well as driving new traffic to your website.

If you’ve decided to create a blog, or add an existing one to your site, working with an ad agency like Strategic Marketing can help you maximize website traffic in its execution. Unfortunately, because algorithms only recognize content of a certain length, adding a monthly paragraph to your blog will do little for your SEO. Similarly, there are rules on keyword usage, best practices for posts and other nuances affecting blog ranking. An ad agency partner can evaluate your current needs, develop maximum-impact strategies and execute this time-consuming tactic.

CULTIVATE A BRAND IDENTITY

The long form content of a blog provides you with ample room to showcase your business’ identity. Consumers want to connect with the businesses they shop from or work with. Blog posting communicates a vision, opinion and personality usually not able to be portrayed through outbound advertising and marketing. Blogs are your opportunity to engage new and existing customers in a more traditional and conversational manner to build trust and rapport. You can expand this even further by maintaining an active comment section for your blog where customers can communicate openly with you and others regarding the content that you are publishing.

BECOME AN INDUSTRY LEADER

By establishing your business as an authority on a specific product, service or innovation, you will be able to capture both, people who are ready for purchase and people who are researching before purchase. You can leverage your blog to provide resources, information and necessary guidance to users regarding your industry topic. Users who find your information useful or who see you as a trustworthy source on the subject will be more likely to purchase from you versus a competitor. This is an easy way to build trust with people who are actively or inactively searching online for the products or services you offer.

LEVERAGE BLOGS FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS

Although your blog should be more about relating to your audience and utilizing important search keywords, the secondary benefits of blogging include the ability to communicate public relations (PR)-type information. From product releases to event information, your blog is a platform to capture the eyes of your own audience who is interested in your product or service, instead of pitching ideas to journalists who may or may not pick up the information. It is a quick way to disseminate important information in an efficient way. We would not suggest using the blog as a method of providing administrative information on a regular basis; However, in a pinch and if it is relevant, the blog can be a great tool to get information out to the masses.

SHARING OPPORTUNITIES

Who doesn’t like free marketing? Each blog presents an opportunity for people to share the content with others, link to it within their own content or share it on their social media. Each share becomes an opportunity for your blog to engage a whole new audience of people and drive new customers to your website. You can add “calls-to-action” within your blogs to make it easier for people to share or reach out to you directly, which can help to funnel people to your business as well.

BENEFITS OF BLOGGING: LONG TERM

The great thing about a blog is that you can “set it and forget it.” Once you publish a piece of content, it will continue to get views and traffic for weeks and months to come, especially when people stumble across it in their searches. If you combine this across several regularly posted blogs, all with their own keywords and messages, then you really have a comprehensive tool to generate traffic for your website and build a trusted brand that resonates with people.

Although it is simple to start blogging on your own, managing a blog page can be tedious work. Researching fresh content with regularity, copywriting meaningful long-form posts on a consistent basis, managing comment responses and monitoring traffic is an extensive undertaking. An ad agency like Strategic Marketing can help you with these tedious tasks and create a cohesive strategy for your blog. Being a strategic partner, we can even help you leverage the blog on your website, social media and other areas where you will be able to pick up even more website traffic for your business. Increased website traffic typically converts into more sales. Visit thinkstrategic.com for a free marketing evaluation and see how we can help you grow your business.