A Brand Message Will Help You Blog for Your Business
Why a good brand message will help you blog for your business
How hard is it to answer this question: “So, what do you do?”
If this question can’t be answered succinctly and in a FEW words (meaning, it doesn’t take you five minutes to explain what you do), then you most likely need a brand message for your business.
Before you start feeling bad about this, please know that I think MOST businesses lack a good brand message, so if you can get yours right, you’ll be ahead of most businesses.
In this post, I’m going to explain what a brand message is and how it will help you blog for your business.
What is a Brand Message?
I’ll define what a brand message is the Jen-X way by first telling you what it’s NOT.
Brand messaging is NOT colors, fonts, and logos.
Brand messaging the “message” of your business conveyed as a narrative. It defines your brand and your audience.
As a Certified StoryBrand Guide, I’ve been trained in the StoryBrand Framework which is a 7-part narrative that helps you create a brand message/narrative for your business and convey it on a website in a way that we know people predictably interact with websites.
The StoryBrand 7-part narrative defines the following:
The character (this is your customer)
Their external problem (the product/service you provide)
Their internal problem (how their lack of your product/service is making them feel)
The philosophical problem (why it’s just not right they have this problem in the first place)
Introduce the guide (this is you!) as the empathetic authority who can solve their problem
The plan (this is the easy 3-step process of doing business with you)
The Call to Action (this is HOW they can do business with you)
These are the elements of any good story. A story is engaging, especially when your customer is the main character and hero of the story. This is how we position them in the narrative of your business. You are merely the guide who will help them succeed!
THEY NEED YOU more than you need them! And this is a good position to be in. If you make yourself the hero, well, that’s a boring story to your customers. And this is what MOST businesses and brands are doing. And frankly, it’s quite off-putting.
Your Brand Message Will Help You Blog for Your Business
Once you’ve created your brand message, you will have a better understanding of:
What you do
What your offer is
Who your target audience is and how they feel
What their pain point is and how you can solve it
What it is you actually want to be doing more of
What you want to be doing less of
You may think you’ve got the answer to #1 nailed down, but do you really? Again, how hard is it to answer the question, “So, what do you do?”
And is it what you actually want to be doing?
By knowing (and being comfortable with) your brand message, your business will have direction and you’ll know what you need to be blogging about.
Your brand message/narrative creates guardrails for your business that streamline your blog and help you create blog content.
Everything you talk about will highlight you as the expert in what you do, and now that you have a great brand message, you know exactly what you do!
Because you’ve nailed down your offer(s), you can now provide free advice that gives people a taste of what it would be like to work with you, making your products/services more desirable and helping convert the 97% of website visitors who aren’t ready to buy from you…YET!
Now that you know your target audience’s pain point and how they feel about it, you can let them know how you empathize with them—this builds trust and makes them feel more comfortable about doing business with you. People make buying decisions based on how they FEEL!
Your blog conveys you as an expert and demonstrates your authority and ability to help your target audience solve their problem
Your brand message defines your business and what you want to be doing in your business. You’re now clear on this and you can blog about topics you enjoy in order to attract the right audience and do more of what you love
Following the guardrails outlined in your brand message, you won’t be tempted to blog about topics you’d rather not be doing so you won’t attract an audience who wants those things
Creating a Brand Message For Yourself Can Be Difficult
And no one knows this better than I do!
Hey, just because I’m a StoryBrand Guide doesn’t mean I don’t struggle to do this for myself!
If it makes you feel any better, we all do! We Guides bounce ideas off each other all the time! Creating a brand message for yourself is hard.
That said, hiring someone to help with this is expensive. If you are a brand new business, I do not recommend investing thousands of dollars into getting a brand message for your business.
Instead, start by reading Building a StoryBrand. If I’m being honest, it changed my business and my life, but I DID go that extra step of becoming a Certified StoryBrand Guide which was a game-changer for me, and if you think you may be interested in doing this, I am more than happy to have an actual conversation with you about it—just email me!
Another option is to attend the StoryBrand Livestream Workshop where you can work with a StoryBrand coach to create and refine a brand message/narrative for your business.
If I Don’t Have a Brand Message, Does That Mean I Can’t Blog?
No!
And the reason I say no is because I don’t want you getting stuck in analysis paralysis. You can’t refine what hasn’t been started, so just blog!
Blogging may even help you form your brand message, especially if you focus on the things you enjoy writing about.
Running a business is a learning experience and can sometimes be a roller coaster. While it’s always best NOT to put the cart before the horse, I think it’s worse to just feel paralyzed and like you can’t move forward.
So even if you haven’t nailed down your brand message, I still think you should blog because it’s a step forward. You can get a brand message when you’re ready.
And besides, your brand’s message is going to shift and change over time as your business pivots, so while it’s super helpful and highly recommended to have one, I DON’T recommend twiddling your thumbs about blogging UNTIL you have one.
I hope that makes sense.
Your Future Self Will Thank You
Having a brand message for your business literally makes everything you do in your business easier.
You know how to talk about your business in a way that will grab people’s attention, and this is important in your blog.
You’ll know how to market your business and position yourself as the go-to person for what you do—also important in your blog.
You can even hand your brand message off to your graphic designer so he/she can create an amazing visual brand for you!
You will feel a sense of relief when you know the direction your business is going in, and you will be able to communicate all of this in your blog!
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Are you stuck on this? Do you feel “lost” in your business and it’s kind of overtaking your every thought? Do you have trouble prioritizing in your business because you lack direction? Please feel free to drop your comments below 👇
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