I’m a little nervous to tackle this topic as a content person. Because really, I think messaging is a task for the brand team. And in many organisations – especially the bigger ones – it is. But in smaller organisations, start ups, or those building their comms and marketing capabilities, there’s often no brand team and a glaring blank space where the messaging guide should be. A blank space that everyone wants to ignore, because it’s really, really hard to fill.
And while it should probably be a brand task, content folk have great skills to bring to bear when it comes to messaging. Firstly, to use Abby Covert’s language, we’re sensemakers. We can take a big mess of information and organise it into something coherent. Secondly, we’re word nerds. We’re equal to the challenges of finding the precise language needed to capture a subtle concept. Thirdly, without a clear steer on messaging, content turns out generic and wishy-washy. It’s hard to make good content without the solid foundation of a messaging guide. And designing an information architecture or writing homepage content? Forget about it. Impossible. And finally, a lot of content folk are tenacious thread pullers. If we notice a snag (no clarity about the fundamental information we need to create content) we’ll unravel the whole blanket, then knit it again into a beautiful pattern (create a messaging guide).
In short, brand messaging is one of those not-content tasks that you might want to take on, and lead upwards or sideways with, because it will make your work easier and better.
So in this guide, you’ll find a basic model to help you understand brand messaging as a beginner, and some tips on how to approach the task.
7 questions to help you build brand messaging
For me, the easiest way to approach brand messaging is to try and get the answers to 7 key questions about the organisation. The questions are listed here, and I’ve included illustrative answers for a fictional housing charity. (Note: I have been beating myself up about the quality of my fictional messaging. Making this stuff up is almost as hard as the real thing, because you need to invent so much backstory to make it all make sense. So use the examples to give you an idea of the kind of answers you’re looking for, rather than of great copywriting, a flawless brand proposition, or a convincing end-to-end narrative.)
1. Who is your organisation for?
Of course we’re going to start with the user. Who is the primary audience your brand, products, or services are for?
Example: Families in City X who are at risk of becoming unhoused because they are facing eviction, living in precarious conditions, or struggling with housing affordability.
2. What’s the need?
What specific need, gap, or problem does your organisation address for your primary audience? How does this need affect their lives?
Example: City X has a shortage of safe, affordable, and stable housing. Rising rents, stagnant wages, and the high cost of living make this even tougher. As a result, an increasing number of families are being evicted and struggling to find a new home. Not having stable housing can lead to severe physical and mental health issues, educational challenges for children who may struggle to attend school regularly, economic instability due to difficulty holding down a job, and social isolation and loss of community.
3. What are you?
What kind of organisation are you, what sector, marketplace or category do you fit into? The simple answer to the question ‘What does the org do?’
Example: A charity that provides housing and housing advice for families in City X.
4. Why do you exist?
What’s the mission, cause or purpose? What is the driving force behind your work?
Example: To end housing instability for families in the city, by providing immediate shelter, long-term housing solutions, and comprehensive support services. Every family deserves a safe and stable home.
5. What’s the vision?
What’s the long-term vision for your organisation? What does the world look like when your mission is complete?
Example: Our vision is a City X where homelessness is a rare and brief experience for families. We aim to create a community with a sufficient supply of safe, affordable, stable housing, where the rental market is fair and accessible to all families.
6. How do you do it?
What specific solutions, programs, or services do you offer to address the need or problem? What makes your approach unique and effective?
Example:
- Emergency shelter: We provide immediate shelter for those in crisis, ensuring they have a safe place to stay.
- Transitional housing: Our transitional housing program helps families move from temporary shelter to more stable living conditions.
- Long-term housing solutions: We work with the local authority and developers to create affordable housing options and help people secure permanent homes.
- Support services: We offer advice and support services to help families resolve housing issues.
- Advocacy: We advocate for changes at a local level to address the root causes of homelessness and ensure that housing is accessible to all.
7. What impact do you have?
What tangible results and outcomes have you achieved? What stories and evidence can you share to show your impact?
Example:
- Provided emergency shelter: Over the past five years, we have provided emergency shelter to over 750 families, ensuring they had a safe place to stay during their time of need.
- Long-term housing support: We have supported over 1,500 families in finding secure, long-term housing, helping them achieve stability and a better quality of life.
- Daily support: On average, 20 families a day access our support services, whether online, on the phone, or in person, receiving the help they need to navigate housing challenges.
- Policy influence: We co-designed a report on housing challenges with families, which has been instrumental in influencing local policy and leading to the creation of 200 new affordable housing units in City X.
How to get the answers to the brand messaging questions
The questions are pretty simple. But getting the answers? That can be pretty difficult, in all honesty. It’s astonishing how often teams can’t answer (or can’t agree on) the answers to these very fundamental questions.
There are a host of reasons for this:
- No attempt to articulate the messages before because winging it worked
- Growth or change necessitating a new way to talk about the organisation
- Disagreement about what the messages should be
- Lack of ownership and accountability
Getting to accurate answers that have consensus is a task that will require all of your curiosity, consulting ability, and stakeholder wrangling skills. Here are some approaches and methodologies that might help.
Find out who can sign this off
The first step has to be to decide who has the authority to sign this off and, before that, be the ultimate decision-maker. Messaging often needs to go pretty high up the reporting lines, and it’s also common to need to use authority to break deadlocks and give vital strategic guidance.
Run interviews and focus groups
A great first step is to speak to lots of different people. Ideally, you would speak to:
- Stakeholders: People in the organisation who have a vested interest, or something to contribute when it comes to the messaging. Ask them the 7 questions, see what their answers are, and lean into their area of specific expertise. (See my guide to stakeholder interviews.)
- Service users/customers/audience: Speaking to the people you serve, your target audience, can show up areas where how the organisation sees itself differs from how the public sees it.
- Peers and partners (if applicable): Staff from other organisations that you work with can offer a really interesting perspective on your brand and messaging. This is important for lots of service-based nonprofits in particular.
Create a domain map
I find domain or ecosystem mapping to be a really helpful step in the messaging process. By this, I mean creating a map of the different topics and concepts at play in the messaging. I’ll often do this in conjunction with the interviews, and use the process to help me spot patterns, make connections, and start to make sense of the mess.
In practice, this can look like a mindmap diagram, or a spreadsheet, where you list concepts against the core questions, and/or any other relevant categories that emerge.
Carry out competitor/comparator benchmarking
Looking at your competitors or comparators can be informative. Study their website and comms, and try to work out how they would answer the key questions. I’ve found that this can be a really helpful asset to show stakeholders, or it can even be effective to get them involved in the creation. It makes the concepts tangible, and it’s provocative in a productive way.
Run workshops
Last but not least, run workshops with stakeholders to develop the messaging. This shouldn’t be about the copywriting, but rather agreeing on the substance. Show them the domain model, and all the different ideas at play. Show them what comparators are doing. Highlight the areas where there’s conflict or a lack of clarity. Get everything out in the open, and facilitate a discussion to try and get to consensus. This will probably take more than one session.
As well as the above, you’ll also need lots of time and space for thinking. Messaging can be one of those Don Draper ‘Just think about it. Deeply. Then forget it. And an idea will jump up in your face’ things. So make sure you’re giving yourself both the ‘think about it deeply’ time, and the ‘forget it’ time.
Using the answers to craft brand messages
The answers to these questions can be used in different combinations to craft the elements of a typical brand messaging framework.
For example:
- Mission statement: Who + Why + How + Impact
- Value proposition: Who + Need + How
- Positioning statement: Who + What + Why + How + Need + Impact
In conclusion
- Brand messaging is crucial for content strategy and creation – it helps to keep things focused and effective
- It should be a brand team responsibility, but if your organisation doesn’t have one, content folks are well placed to pitch in and take on the responsibility
- To come up with your messaging, focus on answering fundamental questions about who you’re for, the needs you meet, what kind of org you are, your mission, vision, methods, and impact
- Make sure you identify a decision-maker who can sign off on the final messaging
- Consult your stakeholders, users and peers as part of the process
- Workshops can help you develop and agree on the substance of the messaging
