The Business Chat - Your Tagline

How many of you rode an elevator this week and thought about your elevator speech? For those just tuning in last Saturday we discussed the beginning of creating your own brand by creating an elevator speech. Today I'll continue with the second marketing tool that every company (and you, you are a company) should create.

Along with your elevator speech I recommend that everyone create their own tagline. A tagline tells customers what to think about you. Here are 2 excellent taglines:

• Just do it.


• You deserve a break today.

I don't have to say the company name, you know who they are. You also have a strong mental image, know what they make and have certain expectations about their products.
The keys to an effective tagline are:

• It's short and easy to remember.


• You use it repeatedly and prominently.


• It conveys something you want potential customers to remember or feel.

When a tagline conveys a feeling, it helps increase the bond between you and your customers.

Many businesses never develop a tagline, and you don't need one in order to succeed. However, an effective tagline helps you clarify what makes your business special in just a few words. It helps customers remember you and to think about why they should buy your jewellery.

A tagline should be no more than 3 - 7 words, the phrase about you and your product that you want to linger in your target customers mind. When 2 women are in a coffee shop discussing a prospective gift, you want your tagline to pop up in their conversation.

Great taglines appear effortlessly created because they seem to flow. In fact, creating one takes time, just like designing a great logo or writing an elevator speech. Great taglines stick in your memory. Your tagline isn't something that you can just whip up. It will evolve along with your jewellery. Work on your style, let the tagline percolate, and one day it will appear.

I advocate the same method for beginning your tagline as for creating your elevator speech. Every time you sit down and make work, jot down on a notepad the following:

• 5 adjectives that describe your work


• 5 words that jewellery makes you feel

After several months you'll notice that the same words begin to appear over and over. Keep going, you'll get there.

Once you have developed a great tagline, use it everywhere! Business cards, booth posters, web sites, your email signature, splatter your tagline anywhere that your customer will see your name. Now that's good marketing.