Here’s the thing: Nearly every business could get better by doing one thing: clarifying your messaging.
The way to make your messaging better is by helping people clearly understand what you do and what you offer through a one-liner and a tagline.
Your one-liner is your elevator pitch. It’s how you tell people what value you can offer to them in a simple sentence or two.
Similarly, your tagline is an abbreviated version of your one-liner that you use in more condensed spaces like your website header area.
It’s not your mission statement. It’s different than that.
Your mission statement tells people what you are all about. It’s a big, lofty goal. Nobody really cares about your mission statement except you and your team.
What people care about is “what’s in it for me?” What value can you offer them that helps improve their world and make their lives better? That’s what should be in your one-liner.
Here’s the problem: most businesses have a version of a one-liner, but it’s not great. It’s often vague because most of the time you haven’t done the hard work of thinking about what it is you offer, how you offer it, and what problem it solves.
If you can truly work out those three areas, you’ll be able to simply write a one-liner and tagline that serves yourself and your audience in a very practical way.
Let’s take a look at the three steps of creating a one-liner in more detail…
Step 1: Define Your Offer
Ask: What is it that you do?
The important thing here is to really think about what you offer. If you sell outdoor furniture, what makes your outdoor furniture offering better than anyone else’s? Is it that you have more selection? Is it that your cushions dry fast? Is it that your frames don’t rust?
What are the tangibles someone gets from buying from you? What end result can they expect?
You’ve got to take it a level deeper than, “I sell outdoor patio furniture.” That’s too ambiguous. HOW is your offer of outdoor furniture better than (or, at least different than) what every other furniture store has? What are the deliverables? What does it look like?
Step 2: Who Is Your Offer For / Who Do You Serve?
Ask yourself who benefits from what you have to offer.
Using the furniture example above, is your furniture for people with lake houses? Is it for the everyday person’s backyard patio? Are you serving higher-end customers or is this a value product?
Who, specifically, can benefit from what you offer?
Step 3: What Problem Does it Solve and How Is The Problem Impacting Your Customer/Audience?
Think benefits not features.
What benefit does your solution bring to your specific audience?
Think about the deep-down emotional benefits. We sometimes refer to this as the “benefit-behind-the-benefit” or the 2nd factor and 3rd factor benefits.
Does your furniture stay clean and dry, meaning your customer doesn’t have to worry about a lot of effort in maintenance? Is it going to impress the neighbors, helping your customer keep up with the Joneses? Can your customer relax knowing they received the very best price?
The First Factor Benefit might be: It’s easy to keep clean.
But to what end does that help?
(Second Factor Benefit) You can spend time enjoying it instead of maintaining it.
So what?
(Third Factor Benefit) You get to spend time with your family & friends instead of keeping your patio furniture clean.
Or, if you’re appealing to an elderly customer, you don’t have to worry about hurting yourself washing and cleaning your patio furniture.
Once you dig deep into the benefits your service offers and the benefit it brings, it’s easy to write a one-liner.
The Formula
Put it all together with this formula:
One Liner –
Most [(who) customer/audience] experience [this problem] which causes [this frustration]. We help [customer/audience] do [(what) solved problem] by [(how) your offer] in order to [benefit].
Tag Line –
We help [customer/audience] do [(what) solved problem] by [(how) your offer].
So, for the example above, the one-liner might be:
Most people who buy patio furniture hate the effort required to keep it clean and looking good. We help busy professionals buy easy-to-clean, simple-to-maintain patio furniture that you can enjoy using, not spending all of your time cleaning.
And the tagline would be:
Easy-to-clean, great-looking patio furniture.
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If you’d like a FREE audit/analysis of your one-liner and tagline, we really enjoy helping organizations and individuals work through it. Contact us and we’ll book a time to chat. No pressure or obligation…just a chat…we’re here to help.