If you had to sum up your brand in one sentence what would you say? If you could explain it further with three to five more sentences then what would you say?
Well, whatever you said, that’s what your brand messaging pillars are.
Let’s unpack.
Defining Brand Messaging Pillars
What Are Brand Messaging Pillars?
It helps to start by defining ‘Brand Messaging’, which refers to the unique value your brand offers and how you communicate that.
‘Brand Messaging Pillars’, then, are the core bits of that communication: the elements which add up to represent your brand’s value, proving your worth to potential buyers in a competitive marketplace.
The Role of Messaging Pillars in Brand Strategy
When you deliver a wide range of content, brand messaging pillars make sure that it all fits under the same umbrella: that is, the umbrella of your brand’s values.
It helps customers understand your brand positioning and it helps you to create content around a consistent theme. The pillars give you something to refer back to, to ground yourself when you create content, and make sure you’re on the right page.
It’s like a house of cards:
The pillars form the base. They need to be strong, and work together to hold up the brand message, which then holds up the content.
Messaging Pillars vs. Taglines
Mission Statements & Values
There are some important differentiations to make:
1. Brand messaging often gets conflated with taglines and mission statements, but they’re different.
Taglines are a catchy phrase that sums up your brand and advertises who you are and what you’re about. They are the briefest snippet of information that helps customers understand what you can do for them.
Similarly, a mission statement is one or two sentences that explain why there’s a need for your brand. It’s a chance to show off why you do what you do.
By contrast, brand messaging is all-encompassing. Indeed, a tagline and mission statement are part of your brand messaging. In other words, taglines and mission statements sum up your business, briefly, to establish your place in a market. But they aren’t the whole umbrella.
2. Your core values aren’t the same thing as your brand messaging pillars. They do, however, work together.
Your core values are internal. They are your business’s unique beliefs, and they give you a sense of purpose. Core values are the foundational ‘why’ that informs the ‘how’ of your messaging pillars. Messaging pillars are external tools that communicate your core values to your target audience.
They are communicated through content and complemented by the other pillars you’ve decided on as a brand.
The Core Components of Messaging Pillars
Brand messaging begins with:
1. A Core Idea or Theme
What’s at the heart of what you want to say?
This links to your brand’s promise: what will you offer your customers?
You should be able to sum it up in a few short sentences, like an elevator pitch. Basically, if you bumped into someone in an lift and you had only a short amount of time to sell your business to them, what would you say?
It should be something that makes you tick—it’s often the reason that you started your business in the first place.
Whatever it is, this will become the central theme of the things you post and the content you create. It comes back to the idea of consistency, helping you to maintain a theme, and supporting your customers to recognise you.
2. Key Supporting Messages
Luckily, most sales pitches don’t happen during a short elevator ride.
Most of the content you create will have a bit more time to explain itself, and it will do so with around three brand messaging pillars.
Yay! The reason you’re reading this article!
To build on your brand promise, the message pillars give key arguments to your potential customers. For example:
1. Luxury Prizes to be won
2. Affordable Ticket Prices
3. Winners with every competition
3. Audience Connection
It’s good to think about ways in which you can use those pillars to connect with people.
The best thing to do is to create some sense of emotional connection, building on customers’ memories and positive association with particular things. It all helps contribute to the creation of a community around your brand.
4. Proof Points and Evidence
Now it’s time to prove that you’ve considered this message, and why it should matter to your audience. That can include:
1. Statistics and data on your customers
2. Market research
3. Features of your product/competitions that INSPIRE
4. Pain points your product/competitions will alleviate
5. Testimonials and customer reviews that show this in action
You should have a few good proof points for each message pillar. The basic aim is to add credibility to the messages you put out there.
Why Every Brand Needs Messaging Pillars
If you’ve read through this and thought, “Do I really need messaging pillars?”, or “that’s all a bit much isn’t it?”… Well, you’re probably not alone, but we’re here to convince you that they’re actually super useful – for you, more than anyone else.
Here’s why:
Consistency Across Channels
If you’ve read through any Zap content before, you’ll have come across this word: ‘consistency’ more times than you can count.
Look, ‘consistency’ is a bit of a buzzword in marketing, but it’s important for a reason. Consistent content creation is important. It boosts the algorithms in your favour and it gives you a coherent image as a brand, which people can use to recognise you.
But it’s hard to achieve that consistency of flow and image if you have no foundations on which to build.
Your brand pillars are that foundation. Just like that house of cards we mentioned earlier: without those brand pillars, there’s no strength to your content. It all stands alone. None of it supports any other part.
That means more work for you to get noticed, and less of a connection with your audience.
Clearer Internal Alignment
The second reason that you need brand messaging pillars is to help you communicate with your own team.
Basically, the pillars act as goal posts. If you’re all on the same page, everyone in your team—from sales, to marketers, to everyone in between—knows what they should aim for.
They give your content and your message a backbone, which everyone can refer back to. That means less need for corralling your team into agreeing with your POV. You all have the same POV, from the get-go.
Now that’s handy.
Stronger External Impact
People like (and trust!) businesses they understand. That’s just a fact.
Brand pillars help them to understand you. They know how you aim to relate to them, and they can see the purpose of your product, and what they stand to gain from investing in it.
Plus, because of all that work you did to create emotional impact with your messages, you’ve tugged on people’s heart strings. That’s a sure-fire way to persuade them.
Easier Content Creation
If you’ve spent time setting up brand messaging pillars, then half your marketing work is done before you even sit down to make content.
You have a goal in place.
You have a focus.
You don’t have to sit there, scratching your head and staring at the blank page in a panic.
So, you don’t sit there and ask yourself: ‘WHERE DO I START, PLEASE HELP!’
You instead ask yourself: ‘How do I convey my message, today?’ That’s a lot less stress. You can tell by the lack of caps-lock.
Constructing Pillars, Building Bridges
All right? If this made sense to you, and you want more where that came from, then look: this is where that came from!
All you have to do is send Team Zap a message. We can discuss marketing, competition businesses. Whatever takes ya fancy.
