Brand Messaging Strategy
Discover how an impactful messaging strategy can ignite the power of your brand’s story
Words matter.
And perhaps more importantly, how we use our words matters. But the real power of a brand’s messaging strategy is in how it builds meaning and alignment for both external and internal audiences. At Intrinzic, we create comprehensive brand messaging strategies that harness the power of your brand’s story by collecting the passions, goals, and culture of your organization.
We do this by crafting a messaging framework from your foundational brand elements, including who you are, what you stand for, and why it matters to your people, your core audiences, and your position in the marketplace. More than simply a brand positioning statement, this type of robust messaging strategy puts your brand in action. By including elements of your brand’s mission, core values, origin story, vision, and emotional connections between your employees and your customers, a unique and ownable brand narrative serves to humanize your brand, making it more relatable to all of your audiences, both internal and external.
This narrative-led approach is one of our core tenets at Intrinzic. We believe that language and messaging are the foundation on which your business is built—elements that are also vital to the marketing and sales process. Defining a true point of difference for your brand through inspiring narratives and highly relevant messaging, our approach also plays a critical role in building a strong and thriving corporate culture.
Brand Narrative: A rallying cry by your people, for your people
While the term brand narrative might give the impression of a meandering piece of content, a well-constructed, strategic brand story will net incredible results for your organization. As part of a broader messaging framework, a brand narrative is an incredibly powerful rally cry: employing anthemic language drawn from the core passions, interests, and aspirations of your people to evoke emotion with every word. This is a critical tool for aligning people at every level of your organization around their common interests and passions. A brand narrative becomes an emblem of your corporate culture. It can help you change your perception of yourself and how you are seen. It can change the perception of what your organization is capable of.
Drawing from established brand attributes and employee insights, a brand narrative is designed to bring your people into the main vein of the story: for them to see themselves reflected in its words and themes, to instill pride, and to inspire collective action toward team achievements.
Another way to instill pride, inspire action, and contribute to a positive corporate culture is through building a messaging framework for internally-focused messages. Through open conversations with employees at every level, you can identify shared beliefs and existing traditions that form the foundation for a strong corporate culture. These shared statements and ideals can be collected into a brand manifesto, or additional motivational statements that serve to bind teams together. Read more here about how our process reveals organizational culture from the inside out.
Recording these shared beliefs, values, and goals can also aid in the creation of an Employer Brand tool that can be used for attracting, recruiting, and evaluating prospective hires. Read more about how to build an effective corporate culture.
“What was also important was we did Brand Story Training. We brought every single employee together to help them learn, help them understand why. When you see them live it and breathe it every day… you hear how they’re really going the extra mile every day. This exercise helped bring out what makes us special and is part of how we tell that story.”
- Lauren Townsend, VP Marketing, Cinfed Credit Union
It’s easy to search for “value proposition” and find a myriad of templates claiming all you need to do is fill in the blanks and in a few short moments, you can create a Mad Lib sort of statement on the value and benefit you provide to your targeted customers. While this kind of tool sounds easy, creating a value proposition for your brand is not that simple. Building a truly strong and effective value proposition requires a strategic approach influenced by your messaging framework, brand mission, values, and more.
A value proposition has a unique duality to it, serving as a pivotal tool that aligns the internal passions and strengths of your people with the external needs and interests of your marketplace.
Exploring the dual role of your brand’s value proposition
It is an opportunity to translate your brand attributes and brand mission in ways that matter to your core audiences and differentiate your brand from your industry competition. And it should be more than a single sentence. Depending on the structure and reach of your organization, it may make sense to define a brand-level value proposition and supporting service-level value propositions.
An effective external messaging strategy for your brand takes your value proposition one step further by building out targeted messaging tailored to each of your audiences. This ensures that the right message is delivered to the right segment in compelling way with a clear call-to-action. At Intrinzic, we call this tool a Brand Messaging Matrix.
“When I read that value proposition, I thought: now we get to be who we are and articulate why who we are is so important to our customers, which is something we just struggled to do. That value proposition allowed us to do that, and that’s when I thought: this is going to be really special for us and how we talk about ourselves.”
- Mel Gravely, Executive Chair, Triversity
From strategy to activation: crafting a targeted marketing plan
Once your internal and external brand messaging strategy and messaging framework is solidified, it’s time to activate it through a comprehensive integrated marketing plan. Now that you know what you want to say and who to say it to, a marketing and channel strategy plan implements the tactical pieces to bring your message to life in the marketplace. Every touchpoint becomes an opportunity to reinforce your brand message and brand positioning.
Our comprehensive approach to building a messaging strategy includes core narratives, supporting messages, and proof points customized to your key audiences and services. By mapping out and prioritizing key messaging at specific stages, our messaging progression models ensure relevance and resonance through a story that builds over time.
The best integrated marketing strategies transform brands into movements
Strong messaging strategies start with a conversation
If you are struggling to identify an effective messaging strategy for your brand, we’d love to hear more about your challenges and identify opportunities to help. Tell us a bit about what you’re looking for.
Want to start a conversation?
Reach out to us directly at cheile@intrinzicbrands.com
