Taglines & Mission Statements: Antiquated or Essential?
GUEST BLOG POST BY SHAUNA GREY OF SIMPLIFIED SAVVY
While having a tagline and mission statement for your business may seem unnecessary or outdated, in my opinion they are absolutely vital.
Why? Let me tell you.
THEY ARE THE ESSENCE OF YOUR BRAND IDENTITY.
As much as colours, fonts and your logo, your tagline and mission are a part of how people identify with your brand. Think of Nike, their tagline “Just Do It.” is about as famous as their checkmark logo.
THEY GIVE YOU A SENSE OF PURPOSE.
Your tagline and missions statement inform why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why do you want to provide this service? How is it helping people? Your mission statement will help you narrow your focus and serve as a reminder to you when times get tough why you started this business in the first place.
THEY KEEP YOU FOCUSED.
When you start to get overwhelmed by requests for your time, keep referring back to your mission and if the tasks at hand don’t align with who you’re trying to serve, it makes it easier to move on and say no so you can open yourself up to say yes to the clients and projects that do.
THEY TELL A STORY.
When someone lands on your website, your tagline and mission give them a sense of you and your brand’s personality. They will be able to tell by the tone what it would be like to work with you. Are you conservative and professional or a little more fun and cheeky? Your tagline and mission tell the tale.
THEY INFORM YOUR AUDIENCE.
Likewise, a person perusing your website should be able to tell right away from your tagline and mission statement if they are your target audience or not and if you are someone that could help them.
SO HOW CAN YOU CREATE A TAGLINE AND MISSION STATEMENT FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
A tagline is meant to be short, catchy and related to the mission of your business. Because of this, I generally recommend coming up with the mission statement first and the tagline second.
A mission statement should answer some, if not all, of these questions:
What do you do?
Why do you do it?
Who do you do it for?
How does it help them?
Let’s take my tagline and mission statement as an example.
Mission Statement: Virtual assistant services (what I do) for entrepreneurs and small business owners (who I do it for) that allows them to get back to running their businesses while I take care of their online worlds (why I do it and how it helps them).
From this mission came my tagline: Your life simplified. While it doesn’t explicitly say what I do, it’s short, to the point and connects with my audience by letting them know I can help make their life easier and in today’s world where everyone is maxed out, who doesn’t want their life to be simpler?
So there you have it, my take on taglines and mission statements. If you don’t already have them, I hope this helps you and if you do, maybe take a look to make sure they still resonate with your business and where it’s at today.
Written by Shauna Grey of Simplified Savvy
