Introduction
A brand promise is a value or experiences your customers can expect to receive every single time they interact with your company. Usually, it comes in a form of a short statement that communicates what your clients can expect when working with you. Thus, it should be a timeless, permanent statement about the value your firm provides to clients.
Furthermore, it must accurately reflect the realities of what clients experience when working with your firm. Ultimately, it will reveal what can consumers expect from your brand across all touchpoints. Hence, it will inform every aspect of your company, from your message to customer service.
Being an important part of your branding strategy, your brand promise should remain constant as it grows and evolves. Fundamentally, it will serve to create your public image and connect with your customers. The more your company can deliver on that promise, the stronger the brand value in the mind of customers and employees. Essentially, a brand promise can be distilled into this simple formula: What you do for whom.
Why Do You Need A Brand Promise?
In short, your brand promise will tell your customer what they can expect from your service. Consequently, it will set their expectations on the quality of your services. Moreover, it represents a critical part of your brand identity.
In turn, this will ultimately set the value of your brand in a customer’s mind. Additionally, with your brand promise statement, everyone within your company can agree on what the brand represents. Furthermore, they can align their efforts to build your brand.
Foundations Of A Powerful Brand Promise
A Brand Promise should be:
- Simple. Keep your promise short and use language that’s easy to understand. Consequently, this can make it clearer and more impactful.
- Credible. Match the customer experience with the brand promise to maintain your brand’s value.
- Unique. Your brand promise shouldn’t sound similar to others. Discover what makes your company unique and different from your competitors.
- Memorable. A brand promise should impact every decision your company makes. Additionally, it must be memorable enough for employees to embrace it and use it during customer interactions.
- Inspiring. An effective brand promise can help you establish a connection with your customers. However, be careful not to promise what you can’t deliver.
- Aligned with your brand strategy. Create a brand promise that aligns with your overall brand strategy. You can do this by using the value proposition expressed in your brand strategy.
- Focused. Narrow your promise to a specific value proposition or experience that customers can expect from your company.
- Meaningful. A brand promise must be followed through with action. Be consistent and educate your employees about your brand message to ensure that your company keeps its promises to your customers.
- Measurable. For your brand promise to be effective, it must be measurable. If you can’t define what your promise means, you can’t measure it. If you can’t measure something, you can’t manage it.
The Most Common Types Of Brand Promises
Emotional: A promise appealing to emotion.
Action-based: A promise tied to a specific action.
Social: A promise based on ethical or social responsibility.
How to Create Your Brand Promise
A great brand promise reflects careful consideration, courage, and creativity. The bolder and clearer the better. The best brand promises are concise, challenging, and connect with consumers on a deep emotional level.
Identify Your Customers
The first step to creating a brand promise is to identify your customer base. Your customers can inform what type of language you use and what values you include. Thus, it’s important to define what group of people you serve. Accordingly, you will be able to meet their needs successfully.
Try to develop a customer persona, which can include demographic information, hobbies, interests, and other details that describe your customers. Additionally, determine what your audience wants from you and understand how they see your brand. For instance, ask them questions like:
- Why do you turn to us instead of going somewhere else?
- How do you see our brand?
- What is the main reason you choose our brand?
This will help you empathize with their perspective, meaning that you will be able to see how your brand appears to them. You can use surveys and feedback forms to understand the customer’s views of your company. The gathered data will help you to craft a brand promise that reflects the experience you want to promote.
Define Your Brand's Value
Another important step is finding your business’ value. During this step, try to identify exactly what your business offers that makes it different from your competitors. Define your service, its quality, price, and organizational values. Create a list of services, or experiences that your business offers and choose the best ones.
Product Category: Define the type of services you are competing in. If your brand spans multiple categories, then define the problem you are solving for people.
Quality: Define the level of quality people expect from your brand or service.
Price: Define the part of the market your company occupies. Choose between lowest cost, budget, mid-range, premium, or high-end.
Values: Define organizational values that are important for your customers. Consider corporate values such as environmentalism, product durability, excellence in customers, or evangelizing a lifestyle.
Keep It Simple, Unique & Inspiring
Your brand promise should be short and clear, something you can say in one sentence. Moreover, it should inspire trust and confidence. To start, answer the following questions:
- What should my customers expect from me?
- What does my company stand for?
- Finally, what makes us unique?
Once you’ve gathered ideas and information, start creating your brand promise. Start by writing down your value proposition, and then form promises around it. You can also write several potential promises and choose your favorites. Additionally, use this formula to help you place all the phrases you came up with:
[Positioning + Vision + Value Proposition = Your Brand Promise]
Or, in detail:
[Your brand– serves -customer category– by providing -quality level–product category– at -price level- to -company values]
Get Feedback
After you write your brand promise, be sure to get feedback from stakeholders. Try to get specific insights on its length, language, and content. Additionally, use this feedback to make improvements to your statement and make the most effective brand promise possible.
Conclusion
To conclude, a brand promise is a statement that describes the value your brand delivers to customers. It can cultivate trust between a business and its customers, as it guides customer interactions. Thus, it should be a top priority when developing your brand identity. Without it, you will likely struggle to develop strong messaging to connect with your target audience.
Once you have it, it will become ingrained both internally and externally as your company grows. Remember to keep it up to two sentences and communicate what the customer expects from all services under your brand. As a result, your organization will create consistent experiences for customers.