What are the Key Elements of an Effective Messaging Strategy?

Let’s drop the humility for a second. You kind of have it all. The killer offer suite. The vibezzz on vibezzz. The ambition to show up, market consistently, and keep creating— even when stuff gets hard. And of course, you have the expertise to back all of this up. 

So why aren’t you at that income goal? Landing that dream collab? Being begged to be on that podcast? Getting strong reach on Instagram? Signing clients within 10 minutes of talking to them? Receiving that book deal?

I’m willing to bet it’s your messaging. You have all of this to offer, but your people aren’t seeing it. And if they are, they’re seeing a watered-down version of it so it’s not resonating at the rate that it could be. 

Let’s equate it to talking to someone underwater. They can hear you, but it’s fuzzy— so when you’re back on the surface you might have to say that message to them again and again until it encodes, when you could have just said it clearly and cleverly the first time above water. 

So the million dollar question is how do you say things clearly and cleverly so people know it’s you from the first touchpoint? It’s all in your messaging strategy. So today, we’re defining the key elements of your messaging strategy. 

What is Messaging Strategy and Why is it Important? 

Put plainly, your messaging strategy is the base for how your brand talks. We can also call it brand messaging, and it’s the verbal component to your visual brand. If this is the first time you’ve ever dug into your brand messaging in this way, I highly recommend you start with the blog post, What is Messaging Strategy and Why Does it Matter? It’s a *chef’s kiss* intro to this kind of work, exemplifying the difference between a brand with strong messaging and one that thinks skipping out on the foundations will be good enough. 

When you define the articulation behind how your brand talks, you can:

• Get a gooey connection with your audience because the consistency in your message make them trust you and the clarity in your message makes them know you’re for them

• Differentiate yourself from your competitors in a way that people can experience, making that ‘hell yes’ factor easier when someone is choosing from 10 tabs  

• Create a brand voice and personality that people want to be immersed in, because it’s interesting and perfectly complements the visuals that they’re seeing in your marketing 

Example 

Makeup brand 1 has really good ingredients and their foundation is clinically-tested to not aggravate acne-prone skin. They publish their case studies, get some ‘minimal’ branding, and then start running ads. 

Makeup brand 2 also uses really good ingredients. And (anecdotally) those with acne-prone skin love wearing their foundation. They don’t have the kind of scientific backing of brand 1, but they invest hard in their messaging, creating the core messaging of “Smooth skin with and without the goo.” They craft their messaging foundation to go hard on this differentiator, creating playful headlines, featuring community stories, and even publishing their founder’s story about her ‘no-goo insecurity’ that made her cake stuff on in high school, making her acne so much worse—contributing to the 100 layers of goo cycle. 

You can clearly see how 2 good brands are going to have very different results based on the investments they’re making (or not making in their messaging). So much so you’re probably thinking you’re ready to scratch the surface and start crafting your brand messaging to pull your people in. 

A great step one is joining my 5-day sprint, The Exact Factor, so we can craft your business one liner to ignite the base that the rest of your messaging will follow.

The Key Elements of Brand Messaging 

Key Element #1- Mission Statement 

Mission statements can be quite corporate-y, but they don’t have to be. This is essentially the manifesto of why you exist. I don’t believe in a rigid structure of We exist to save babies because of our extremely long ladder that can get them out of unsafe cribs at night. It’s a structure I find to be quite tired. But the idea stays the same. 

In your mission statement, you want to answer:

What do we do?

Why do we do it? 

How do we do it?

What are we solving?

Who are we solving it for? 

You don’t have to answer them all. You don’t have to be super specific. Just do your best without writing a whole-ass paragraph to describe your business. Something like:

Turning good businesses into unicorns through the power of clear messaging and zesty copy, so women entrepreneurs can lean into their differentiators, shape their industry, get noticed, and scale rapidly. 

Wonder whose this is? ;) 

Key Element #2 - One Liner 

People say your elevator pitch should be under a minute. I think if someone held me hostage in an elevator for one minute straight, spewing out business facts, I’d never hire them. You have way less than a minute. You have a couple words to hook people. Same goes for your IG bio. Your headline. Your podcast intro. So we need to craft a one liner for your business that’s short, snappy, and clear. 

Nutrition coaching for the girlies who love to eat. 

Bookkeeping for the chaotic calculators.

Learn to write blog posts people actually want to share. 

We need to clear one thing up. This is not a tagline. This actually tells people what you do. And they can be longer. In my 5-day sprint, The eXact Factor, we tend to craft longer ones, like: 

Call panic's bluff and get to the root cause of your anxiety by opting for 'get your life back' therapy instead of 'feel good, but feed the anxiety' fixes

Breaking down complex subjects about the body to promote lasting healing and inclusive participation regardless of spine and hip conditions

Cut free from the grind of outdated floristry and plug in virtual assistant support. Shed the productivity guilt and press play to rehydrating a thriving, stress-free florist business.

Treat your horse like an athlete with physio-designed rehab programs, so they can come back stronger after injury.

Reclaim your joyful, creative SELF with coaching that chips away the disempowering conditioning of medical training. Discover your unique path to changing the world without sacrificing your health and happiness.

Stick it to trend chasing and create evergreen content you know your audience already loves with a content organization system your Type A BFF would approve of.

Pack your bag. Show up. We're trading a regular vacation for a travel adventure that makes your grandkids say, 'you did that?!'

Ditch the 'skinny' pressure and self love your way into a healthy mind, body, and spirit wth the Work In, Work Out method-- taking down patriarchal beauty standards in the process

And yes, those are actual one liners my students in the last challenge left with, so if you’re craving having me write on of those bad boys for you, definitely save your seat in the next round.

Key Element #3 - Problem Articulation 

Whoever said don’t speak to pain points needs to get out of la la land. We all have problems we want to solve, and that’s why we buy things. I buy chocolate to make bad cramps better. I buy pretty clothes to make winter less dreary. I buy makeup because I don’t need everyone to know I got 2 hours of sleep last night. Denying these completely will make your messaging weaker. 

Businesses don’t get in trouble for talking about problems. They get in trouble for talking about the wrong problems. If you’re speaking to a problem your ideal client doesn’t have, they’re gonna leave. Especially if this problem is below them because we enjoy buying aspirationally. So when you’re crafting you’re messaging, you’ll want to talk about the problems your people actually have in the specific way they are experiencing that problem. 

Key Element #4 - Solution Articulation

The solution. Aka the value. Why are you great? What are you fixing? How are you fixing it? If you’re not clearly articulating the fix, it’s going to be hard to get people to move. I’ll buy terribly branded products when the message makes me see the solution. But never the other way around. I wouldn’t buy a nicely packaged bottle of sunscreen if I had no idea how protective it was for my Australian beach trip. 

The nuance around crafting messaging for a solution is finding a happy medium between big dreams and actual benefits. Can toothpaste change my life? I mean, maybe, if I’ve had tooth pain for years and this special fluoride would take that away. But chances are, it’s going to whiten or protect against cavities. Same goes for a coaching offer. Will you change their life in a Threads course? Maybe. But more realistically you’ll increase their reach through more eyeballs on their replies. So be mindful of this balance when writing out your value statements. 

Key Element #5 - Differentiators Defined 

I’m more passionate about differentiators than Swifties are about…nevermind, not even going to touch that one. If you don’t have differentiators, you don’t have a business. You’re swimming in a sea of sameness trying to scream something louder than the person next to you. The good news is we all have differentiators. The ones who succeed are the ones who can articulate them in a spicy, ‘wow, you’re the one’ way. 

Example:

It’s not that you deliver websites in a week. It’s that you get the site up quickly, so Black Friday can be record-breaking sales instead of what could have been. 

Key Element #6 - Ideal Client Avatar 

There’s a lot of debate about the ideal client avatar. I think it’s a cute activity if you want to do it for clarity, kinda like building a Sim, but it’s not THAT helpful for messaging. We don’t really care that your ideal client has a latte with oat milk and gets her hair done every two weeks. Unless, of course, we’re an oat milk latte blowout bar— which, can someone invent that? 

What your messaging needs is specificity, so when I’m building out this part, I’m often thinking how can we explain our ideal client in a way to HER where she can self identify as ‘YES, this is so me. This is getting kinda meta' so an example would be. 

Instead of:

You're a go-getter mom in your 30s with young kids and a full schedule. 

It’s:

You somehow managed to make it to Pilates even though you have 2 kiddos under 2 koala-ing your legs for half the day. Then you created content. Then you created client results on Telegram. Then you hopped on 3 calls. Most would call you superwoman, handing out a gleaming trophy— but I’m calling you tomorrow to set up some more systems that let you have space to breathe. 

We are defining your ideal client in your brand messaging (of course) but we’re putting it in context of what you’re selling and actually speaking to her in a way that she can self identify. 

Key Element #7 - Product Suite Articulation 

Your product suite or offer suite plays really nicely together. But how? If you don’t talk about the customer journey at each step, then it’s going to be hard to sell those offers. In this part of brand messaging, we’re essentially creating one liners for each offer then talking about some of the ideal client factors that make someone a good fit for each step. 

And yes, the clarity that pops out after doing this has the power to give you sales content for weeks. 

Key Element #8 - Brand Values 

Transparency. Honesty. SLEEP. Listing out brand values is incredibly unhelpful and boring. The way I craft these is I notice threads in your business then get ultra-specific on how that ties to something deeper. So if you’re an inclusive fashion brand that rivals Gucci’s couture lens then you’d have a great brand value of Inclusive Exclusivity. Intriguing, yeah? Then we’d figure out ways to weave that into your copy without you just saying it on your About page.

Do this for about 3 different values, really stretching yourself to be specific and creative with these. 

Key Element #9 - Headline Bank 

When you’re doing brand messaging work so many good one liners and nuggets are going to come out. So I added this into my process, even though it’s not standard. Creating a bank of 20 one liners that would make great headlines for content and website pages. 

Wanna do this yourself? Go through your brand messaging. Pull out the juicy nuggets. Distill them into singular sentences. Save them somewhere for when you need them. 

Key Element #10 - IG Bio 

Seems like a flimsy, kinda transient thing to include in foundational messaging strategy, no? Nope and here’s why. Maybe you don’t use IG, but I can bet you’re using platforms with serious character limits. When I challenge you (or me if you hire me) to distill your brand messaging into bare bones sentences and emojis, magic happens. You get so hyper-clear on how to deliver your big promise in a bite-sized way, you develop even stronger ways of articulating your brand.

Sometimes my clients say this is their favorite part of getting The Brief. Oh, what's the Brief. Hehe, click me.

Key Element #11 - Founding Story and Founder Bio 

People want to know who’s behind the brand. Whether you’re a coach or a cookie baker. A e-comm store owner or calligrapher— people love stories. By writing out your ‘how we got here’ story almost like a fiction read, you’re pulling people into your mission in a way that’s so tangible. We want to know what big aha moment made you launch your skincare line. We want to know how that sh*tty day at work contributed to creating your 500K-person community, Quitters. We want all the tea. 

You founder bio on the other hands is the evidence that backs up your story. Sometimes a little drier. Can definitely be pitched to investors. Makes me think ‘oh this is THE person to be leading this business.’ You want both in your brand messaging because they have such different use cases. 

Key Element #12 - Brand Voice and Brand Voice Application 

Wait, we END with brand voice? Yep. You don’t have to, but I like to. I like to go through a company’s brand messaging, letting myself shape it without feeling the pressure of funny, casual, educated going through the back of my mind. Then, when I get here I can see ‘oh, I really crafted a deliciously witty, obscene, and casually conversational hot sauce brand’— allowing me to now define that on paper and explain what I did in my writing to evoke this brand voice. 

How to Craft Your Own Brand Messaging

The Gold Standard - Hire Me 

Having me lay eyes on your business, then crafting your foundational brand messaging so your people get it will make writing copy, creating content, and talking about your brand much easier. That’s what we do in The Brief. It’s done-for-you messaging strategy where you leave with a doc that looks like this. 

Need an example?

And if you’re thinking about hiring me to write your website too, you’ll get a credit for $900 off The Brief when you add it on. Holy cannoli, I know.

But if you want to do this yourself, this is what I have for you 

The brand messaging workbook. It’s the exact process I use when clients hire me to do it through The Brief— except you get to take it and write it out for yourself. I created a fun, fake company to take you through the process, showing you weak and strong examples for each key element of brand messaging. 

No matter what you choose. Or even if you do nothing today— I wanted this to show you the power of going beyond defining these things and *actually* articulating them. Brand messaging is that not-so-silent thing that when a company has it dialed in, you feel that by wanting literally everything they’re selling.

If your business is feeling ‘off,’ brand messaging can be a great investment to put that spark in your business— making every piece of copy and content speak to one core message. This messaging focus will get your brand noticed, hired, shared, and amplified. Because the best-kept secret zone is not an option for you. Not on my watch. ;)