What is brand message?
A brand message is the verbal communication of your law brand’s value proposition. It is crafted considering both the internal and the customer’s perspective and the competitors’ promise. In addition, it serves to differentiate your law brand from other competitors in the market.
Your brand message should be:
- Engaging: It should resonate with the needs and desires of your target audience.
- Relevant: It has to be important to your audience. They need to relate to it in order to choose your brand.
- True: It should have a form of concise and clear information that tells a specific story. Most importantly, it must promise to deliver only what it can provide to the customers.
Brand messaging is a combination of factors such as language, specific terms, and the tone of voice. Furthermore, brand message in law branding should be used every time a company communicates.
When crafting your brand message, focus on the desired positioning. Analyze your positioning by answering the following questions:
- The customer point of view: What matters the most to the customers? What do they want to hear? Your brand message needs to be customer-centric and get inside the mind of your audience.
- The internal point of view: What’s your company’s vision? What can your company provide? Take a look at your law brand from the inside out.
- The competitive point of view: How to differentiate your law brand from the competitors? What are your competitors already providing? Consider your marketplace and don’t forget to conduct necessary researches.
Once you have a solid understanding of these points, you can start building your messaging framework.
Types of brand messages
Brand messaging is all about how your customers, but also your employees perceive your law firm.
In other words, branding starts from within. Company culture, values, and mission statements set the foundation for how your potential customers experience your law brand. Besides that, they also define your place in the market. Brand message in law branding comes in two shapes- internal and external and they consist of several components.
Internal brand messaging
Brand message in law branding should start with how you and your team define your law brand. Your mission, vision, and values affect your employees as much as the general public. Company culture develops from internal brand messages, so it’s important to define these early in your company’s development. Spend time identifying your core mission, vision, and values when developing your brand message. These will be vital to the rest of your messaging and to your law business itself.
External brand messaging
External messaging in law branding implies crafting a message directed to the general audience.
These messages tend to be more informational and actionable than internal ones, which usually revolve around ideas. External brand message in law branding includes your positioning statement, differentiators, unique value propositions and slogan.
Components of brand messages
Brand Promise
A brand promise is a promised value your customers expect to receive every single time they interact with your company. The more a company can deliver on that promise, the stronger the brand value in the mind of customers. In other words, it communicates the benefit that makes your service desirable.
Vision Statement
Your vision statement is a predictive statement that sets a future goal for the direction of your law business. In short, it’s a desire to see the changes in the world based on your law company’s doing.
Mission Statement
Your mission statement is a visionary type of statement for your law company’s accomplishments. It should answer the question of why do you want to do something. In contrast, it is often used both internally and externally.
Positioning Statement
Your positioning statement defines where you fit in the marketplace. Furthermore, it should answer the what, who and how for your law business. Have in mind that this statement will be seen by a large number of people.
Target Audience
Throughout this process, it’s important to keep your ideal buyers in mind. Work toward messaging that will resonate with their needs, motivations, interests, and pain points. That way you can craft quality customer service with a specialized approach to each individual.
Values
Your values are the guides that determine how you conduct your law business. Identify your values by answering the question in what your law firm believes. If your vision is the ultimate destination your values are the map that guides your company’s journey into the future.
Value proposition
Value propositions are short statements that define what is the value of your law business or your services. Therefore, you’ll likely have more than one. Accordingly, use them as a part of your marketing material. For example, share them on your website to introduce the visitors to your law company.
Differentiators
Your differentiators are unique attributes that set your law brand apart from your competitors. Discover your differentiators by listing what makes your law company different in your industry. Finally, isolate the most meaningful attributes and use them to communicate your brand’s message through marketing material.
Tone & Voice
Effective brand messaging is not only what you say, but how you say it. Define the tone that you want to use for your brand while maintaining your brand’s voice consistency. Afterward, use them properly in your marketing materials in order for customers to emotionally connect with your law brand.
Tagline
Your company’s slogan is one of the most important elements of your external brand messaging. Therefore, you should compose a unique, attention-grabbing message in a few words. Depending on your brand personality, choose the tagline that best suits your law business. Above all, make sure your slogan is simple, short, and memorable.
Brand Pillars
Brand pillars should describe the three most important selling points of your service. While crafting them, keep in mind the customer, internal and competitive point of view. Futhermore, support each brand pillar with a key benefit statement and relevant examples.
Secret formula
Describe as much as you can in as few words as possible. Start building your pitch with a positioning statement at the center, and then add your differentiators and value propositions around it. As a result, you’ll have a 30-second statement that expresses all of the important parts of your law brand.
Conclusion
Brand message in law branding should be incorporated in every service offering and communication message. For instance, include it into your website design, business cards, and even your marketing campaigns. That way, it will ensure a top-quality customer experience. And most importantly, it will present your law brand the way you want it to be seen.