Understand Your Messaging Pillars

What are they?

Messaging pillars are a part of a framework of messages to make sure your brand always reflects your values, mission and purpose. They create a base for all of your content to come from and enable your brand to stay consistent and have a cohesive story. This becomes even more important when you have more than one person creating content for the brand.

When you can successfully articulate what your brand does and/or the problem it is solving, in simple powerful language, you can communicate effectively to your target audience. Without strong messaging it will be more challenging and slower to grow your business.

Brand messaging is a framework comprised of:

• Value proposition
• Tag line
• Messaging pillars

Messaging pillars are the core of your overall brand messaging strategy. They are particularly useful for your content creators. To be able to form your messaging pillars you should already have your tag line and value proposition in place.

Before we go any further I want to explain what else goes into your brand messaging.

• Purpose
• Vision
• Mission
• Values
• Position
• Voice
• Tag line
• Value proposition
• Messaging Pillars

When developing your brand strategy, purpose, vision, mission and values are all part of your brand heart, sometimes known as the brand core. Before any of this can be done you must start by doing your research. You need to run competitive analysis and market research so that you can understand what your audience want and need, how they view your brand and how you are different from your competitors. This is vital when creating your position and voice as without knowing where you stand and how your audience think, you will struggle to carve out your own space to communicate your message clearly.

I put messaging pillars at the bottom of the list because you need to have all the other information to create pillars that work for your brand. Once you have your brand heart, position and voice you can create your tag line, value proposition and messaging pillars.

To create your messaging pillars you should start with your tagline. From there take a value proposition that aligns with the tagline. 

I like Steve Blank’s XYZ template:

We help X do Y doing Z.

Now let’s create the messaging pillars. Pick three major selling points, benefits or themes. These are now three separate pillars. You may have more than three selling points, so you should consider ways to incorporate those points into the three pillars. Under each point create three supporting points or talking points. If possible, identify real evidence for each pillar.

After this exercise you should have gathered some key phrases that can be used throughout your copy.

Before moving on, refine your pillars. 

Ask yourself: 

Are they written in the brand voice? 

Does each pillar support the next? 

Do the pillars relate to the tag line and value proposition?

Are the benefits clear and concise?

Can I add emotion or deduct words to create more impact?

Now you have a strategy that you can create all of your messaging from. You can look at each separate pillar and brainstorm content. Anybody working on your content knows what they should be creating.

I love the messaging pillars for the simplicity it gives you. They are incredibly useful and keep your messaging strong and on brand.