Brand messaging isn’t simply those arm-twisting, automated texts you get from Domino’s on a Friday night (every. single. Friday. night.)
In simple terms:
Your brand messaging is what you’re trying to communicate to your audience to sell your product or service, and how you communicate it to them.
Let that be one of, if not the major takeaway of this post.
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As the title suggests, our goal in this post is to help you nail your brand messaging, giving your brand a clear and consistent voice.
Now, let’s get going!
What is Brand Messaging?
Brand messaging is the way your brand communicates its value and personality through verbal and non-verbal messaging.
Brand Messaging can include:
- Your company name
- Slogans or taglines
- The copy on your website
- Your social media posts
- Infographics
- Adverts
- Any written correspondence from your brand
- How your staff greet customers
And your brand messaging serves to:
- Communicate your brand values and beliefs
- Promote your product or service to a customer in a compelling way.
What is a Brand Messaging Framework?
Brand messaging frameworks might also be referred to as “messaging structure” or “communication guidelines”. But whatever you want to call it, it’s fundamental to get a strong framework in place before you start to roll out your brand messaging.
Your brand messaging framework is a structured representation of the service that your brand provides. This structure then forms a guide, which acts as a North Star for your content creation, marketing, and branding.
By using a brand messaging framework this way, you know that all of your communications adhere to your core messages.
Your brand messaging should build your brand, using words rather than visuals. Remember, consistency is key to building a standout brand!
Why is Brand Messaging Important?
Your brand messaging speaks volumes about your brand identity (and business brand as a whole), and nailing the correct brand messaging is the difference between super strengthening your branding or going off-piste and letting it crumble.
Your brand messaging establishes the credibility of your brand, both with your target audience and in the marketplace.
Great messaging reinforces your values and shapes people’s perception of your business, helping to build trust and connection with your audience.
It’s a key tool for brand differentiation, especially in a crowded space.
By developing a clear and unique voice that you use consistently throughout your communication channels, you’ll be making your brand stand head and shoulders above others.
Your brand messaging should successfully communicate all the different elements of your brand strategy document.
Ensuring Consistency Through Brand Architecture
Brand messaging isn’t just about what you say. It’s also about how your messaging fits within the structure of your organisation as a whole.
For businesses with multiple products or sub-brands, having a clear and organised brand architecture is essential for maintaining consistency across the business.
A strong brand messaging framework helps maintain clarity and prevents confusion across all communication channels.
A Successful Brand Messaging Example
First things first: know your audience.
In B2B, clarity and relevance are everything. Your messaging needs to immediately communicate value to other businesses.
A great example of this is Slack, the messaging platform for teams. At first glance, it might seem like “just another work tool,” but their brand messaging framework turns it into something that businesses need.
Their tagline, “Great teamwork starts with a digital HQ”, does a lot of heavy lifting. It tells you what Slack does, why it matters, and who it’s for, all in one line.
But Slack doesn’t stop at a tagline.
Their website, emails, and in-app communications all carry the same approachable, helpful tone. It’s professional, but not stiff; informative, but not jargon-heavy. Every message reinforces their value proposition: making teams more productive, collaborative, and happy at work.
Slack’s messaging works because it’s clear, benefit-focused, and consistent across every touchpoint. They know their target audience – business teams, managers, and knowledge workers – and tailor their language so that every interaction reinforces their brand story.
The takeaway? B2B doesn’t have to be boring.
Clear, consistent messaging that shows real value will not only attract customers, but it will also keep them engaged, loyal, and evangelising your brand.
Common Brand Messaging Challenges (And How to Fix Them)
Even the best brand messaging strategies hit bumps in the road.
Here are some of the most typical challenges we see — and practical ways to overcome them.
1. Inconsistent messaging across channels
If your website, social media, and emails all sound different, your audience will get confused, and confused customers are rarely going to convert.
Solution: Use a clear brand messaging framework and document your key phrases, tone of voice, and vocabulary in a style guide.
Everyone on your team should have access and know where to check before publishing anything.
2. Confusion about your target audience
Messaging aimed at “everyone” often reaches no one. Generic language won’t resonate.
Solution: Revisit your audience research and define clear messaging pillars. Understand who your ideal customer is, what they care about, and how your brand speaks to them.
3. Misaligned brand identity and tone
If your words don’t reflect your brand’s values or archetype, it feels off. A luxury brand that sounds casual or a rebellious brand that sounds corporate will jar customers.
Solution: Align every piece of messaging, whether that’s slogans or customer greetings, with your core brand identity. Archetypes are great tools here (more on this later.)
4. Overlap with competitor messaging
If you sound just like your competitors, why should customers pick you?
Solution: Highlight your unique selling points and value proposition clearly. What makes you different? What do you do better than anyone else? Make that the heart of your messaging.
5. Eroded customer trust
Mixed messages or sloppy communication can make even the best brand seem unreliable.
Solution: Consistency is key. Keep your messaging clear, honest, and aligned with your brand values. Over time, repeated, coherent communication builds credibility and trust.
Pro tip: Think of this section as a pre-flight checklist for your brand messaging. Spot the challenges early, fix them, and you’ll save a lot of headaches down the line.
How Do I Decide On My Brand Messaging?
Your brand messaging covers everything from your website and advertising copy, and industry pitches, to how your staff greet your customers on the telephone or sign off on emails.
Making a strong decision on the direction that your brand messaging is going to take is essential.
Your messaging should align with your overall brand concept, which is at the core of how your brand is perceived.
Brand messaging is the difference between greeting customers with a ‘Hey there!’ or a ‘Good morning’ when they walk into your workspace or pick up the phone.
First impressions are everything.
These separate factors may seem insignificant. It may feel enough that staff are polite to customers when they get in touch, but every brand touchpoint a customer comes across builds up a picture of your brand.
Cross reference your touchpoints. Does your website ‘about us’ page feel in line with your company slogan? Could the copy be tweaked to reflect this even more?
Using Your Brand Archetypes to Create Effective Messaging
When developing your brand messaging, it’s important that the tone and language you use reflect your brand archetype. This helps your messaging connect with your target audience.
Let’s look at a couple of examples:
The Lover Archetype
Brands that embody the Lover archetype focus on creating deep emotional connections. Their messaging is often soft, intimate, and even sensual. Words and phrases are carefully chosen to evoke feelings of passion, warmth, and exclusivity. The Lover brand wants to attract and seduce, making their customers feel special and valued.
Examples of Lover Archetype Messaging:
- “Indulge in the experience.”
- “Unleash your desires.”
- “Feel the connection.”
- “Love every moment.”
The Outlaw Archetype
On the other end of the spectrum, the Outlaw brand is all about breaking the rules and challenging the status quo. The messaging here is bold, brash, and unapologetic. Outlaw brands often use strong, direct language that inspires a sense of rebellion and independence. They aim to disrupt, provoke, and differentiate themselves from the mainstream.
Examples of Outlaw Archetype Messaging:
- “Dare to defy.”
- “Break the rules.”
- “Live on your own terms.”
- “Challenge the ordinary.”
Whether your brand embodies the Lover, Outlaw, or any of the other core brand archetypes, the key to impactful messaging lies in maintaining a consistent tone of voice. This alignment not only strengthens your identity but also builds a deeper connection with your audience, ensuring that every interaction feels completely authentic and true to your brand’s core.
The devil is in the detail with this stuff, and as a branding agency, we find ourselves spending longer than we would like to admit mulling over whether un-capitalising the first letter at the start of a sentence on a website will enhance their brand messaging or not.
When you come to determine your brand messaging framework, you should be at a point where you have already nailed your brand values, brand strategy, your target audience, and your brand positioning against your competitors.
If you aren’t at this point yet, go back and get started on those first.
Your findings from these will give you the best springboard for where to head with your brand messaging.
What Should My Brand Messaging Include?
Brand messaging shouldn’t just be a sales pitch. It’s about communicating your brand’s values, story, and purpose in a way that connects with your audience.
Go beyond “Buy this!” or “Use us!” and focus on building relationships, starting conversations, sharing knowledge, and raising awareness.
Ask yourself:
- What makes our brand unique?
- What processes, methods, or proprietary systems set us apart?
- What is our culture and brand philosophy?
If your brand has a USP, for example, being environmentally friendly, weave it into every message.
A relaxed, inviting tone usually works better than heavy-handed or robotic approaches. Think about how you wouldn’t like to be spoken to…then do the opposite.
Your messaging underpins everything: sales pitches, website copy, offline communications, and social media.
If you need help crafting messages that truly reflect your business and connect with your audience, consider partnering with a branding agency for expert guidance.
So, How Do I Create A Brand Messaging Framework?
Ok, so we have a couple of methods we recommend to create an awesome brand messaging framework. Let’s talk about them.
The Pillars Strategy
You can start by creating some brand pillars.
These pillars must support each other, and hold the weight of your statements up with proof.
These are 3 major themes, benefits, or selling points that make your company unique. Now add 3 supporting items underneath each of these to validate your initial points.
Finalise the pillars you’ve created. Now, start to refine your messaging by asking yourself the following questions:
- Does each tier of the pillar support the next?
- Are there opportunities to cut, condense, or inject more emotion?
- Are the benefits your company brings clear and consistent?
Along with coming up with your brand messaging framework, another great benefit of this exercise is that once you’ve refined your messaging down to 3 key talking points, it’ll help you to establish phrases, slogans and keywords that you can then use across your entire marketing strategy.
The “So That” Strategy
Forget everything we just worked on in the Pillar Strategy, this is a totally different way of creating your brand messaging framework.
The “So That” strategy focuses on connecting two thoughts together using “so that…” to bring a direct benefit to your customer. Think of a chain reaction of events, because of your service.
First, you talk about something your company does, then immediately discuss a direct benefit of that thing.
Here, you’re looking to create 3 to 5 great “so that” sentences related to your brand and its messaging.
Something that your company does or offers > So that… > Direct benefit to your customer
Once you’ve nailed these 5 statements, you’ve got a whole range of Brand Messaging on the table.
XYZ Method
The essential step in creating your brand messaging framework is to craft your value position.
This statement will be the cornerstone for a lot of your brand materials, directly (e.g. on your website homepage) or indirectly (e.g. through blog articles and other marketing materials.)
The easiest way to do this is to use Steve Blank’s XYZ method.
Fill in the blanks.
We help [X] do [Y] by doing [Z]
It doesn’t have to be simply adding one word into each blank. Use the structure, but make it your own – and remember that this is still only a single sentence.
That was quicker than you thought, wasn’t it?
Brand Messaging ROI and Evaluation: How to Know It’s Working
Brand messaging isn’t just about sounding good, it’s about getting results. But how do you know if your messaging is actually moving the needle?
1. Integrate brand and performance metrics
Brand messaging should work hand-in-hand with your marketing efforts. Track metrics like website engagement, social shares, click-through rates, and conversions alongside brand sentiment. If your campaigns are attracting eyeballs but customers aren’t engaging or converting, your messaging may need fine-tuning.
2. Conduct regular messaging audits
A brand messaging audit is like a health check for your communications. Review your website, social media, emails, and offline touchpoints to see if they consistently reflect your tone of voice, value proposition, and brand story. Look for gaps, contradictions, or diluted messaging.
3. Use workshops to refine your message
Bring your team together for brand messaging workshops. These sessions help align everyone, from copywriters to customer-facing staff, and provide qualitative insights into how your messaging resonates internally and externally.
4. Evaluate both qualitative and quantitative feedback
Quantitative: engagement metrics, lead generation, conversion rates, campaign performance.
Qualitative: customer surveys, focus groups, and even anecdotal feedback from sales or support teams. Both give you the full picture of how your messaging is landing.
5. Keep your toolkit updated
A brand messaging toolkit, including tone of voice guidelines, copywriting templates, key phrases, and even visual identity references, makes it easier to maintain consistency. Update it regularly as your brand evolves, new products launch, or audience expectations shift.
6. Iterate and optimise
Your messaging isn’t set in stone. Use the data you collect to tweak, test, and optimise your communications. Even small adjustments can improve engagement, strengthen your brand identity, and ultimately increase ROI.
Pro tip: Think of your brand messaging as a living system. Regular evaluation ensures that every email, social post, or performance ad reinforces your story, connects with your audience, and drives business outcomes.
The Best Brand Messaging Framework to Help You Get It Right
Brand messaging covers every part of your branding that uses language. The trick to this is to start seeing every time you use language in business as a chance to strengthen your brand message.
From social media to PR and print advertising, you can use your brand messaging framework throughout. You can even use brand messaging in your annual report!
Knowing that we’ve had a tangible impact on the businesses we encounter – both old and new – is one of the main reasons why we do what we do here at Canny. We’re a creative marketing agency with a lot of experience in getting results for our clients.
It’s why we know a thing or two about brand messaging frameworks; we’ve helped many brands find their voice over the years.
With that said, if you need a hand with your messaging (or, in fact, any other area of your brand!), let’s chat.
