Taglines have a big responsibility: they’re charged with capturing the essence of a brand and communicating its biggest benefit in just a handful of words. You may be feeling overwhelmed by the task of writing this important customer message, but there’s no need to panic. If you’ve already done the work of defining your brand, determining your ideal customer and identifying the benefits you offer, you’re ahead of the game. Put on your Creativity Cap and commit these four tips to memory to create a tagline your customers will adore.
1. Keep it simple.
Taglines need to get right to the point. If your tagline is more than eight words, it’s too long. A great example of a simple tag line is Volkswagen’s “Drivers Wanted”. In just two words, it defines the kind of customer Volkswagen aims to serve, and it makes people want to be that customer.
2. Be clear.
You probably have several things you want customers to know about your brand. For the sake of your tagline, pick the one thing that is most unique or most important. The M&Ms tagline “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand” illustrates this concept perfectly. M&Ms taste good and are fun to eat, but lots of candies fit that description. With their tagline, Mars made it clear that M&Ms were the least messy chocolate treat on the market.
3. Use interesting words.
Choosing an unexpected word can make an otherwise boring tagline memorable, so get friendly with your thesaurus. Do you think BMW’s “The Ultimate Driving Machine” tagline would have been as effective if it was instead “The Best Driving Machine”? Probably not.
4. Make it about the customer.
Verizon Wireless’ “Can you hear me now?” tagline highlights a huge customer benefit: if you use Verizon for your cellular service, you’ll experience fewer dropped calls. If Verizon instead went with something like “The most cellular towers in the U.S.”, customers would have said, “So what?”
After you’ve developed three or four taglines that you like, share them with a team of trusted staff members. A group consensus will help you identify the strongest choice. Your tagline will be a part of your brand for a long time, so don’t settle for anything less than perfection.