When you hear the phrases “Just Do It” or “Think Different” what comes to mind?
Probably Nike and Apple.
These famous taglines have been ingrained into our psyche and are strongly associated with these brands.
Simply hearing the taglines conjures up images and feelings around both Nike and Apple without the need to mention either brand by name.
But what is a website tagline and why is it important?
A tagline is a short catchphrase used by brands to capture their entire brand essence in a simple and easy way for people to remember.
However, not all taglines are created equal.
A good tagline also represents what your brand stands for and the value it provides to your audience.
If repeated enough, the tagline becomes synonymous with the brand.
This is a great thing because studies have shown that people are more likely to buy from brands they are familiar with, as it creates inherent trust.
If used correctly, taglines help to build both familiarity and trust between your brand and your audience.
A quick note about taglines is that it is different from a slogan. A tagline is a permanent phrase that reinforces your brand essences. On the other hand, a slogan is temporary and particular to a specific marketing effort.
How can a tagline support your business and help you find the right clients?
Your potential clients are always searching for the best solution for their problem.
And naturally, they will compare you with competitors before deciding who to purchase from.
Having a strong and memorable tagline helps your brand stand out from the competition and influence the right clients to say YES to buying from you.
Why?
When potential clients visit your website or social media accounts, they’ll see exactly what makes your brand unique and why it’s the best option for them, from your tagline.
In essence, your tagline becomes their first impression of you and sets a positive tone for the rest of their experience with your brand.
If they resonate with what your tagline represents, they’ll be more likely to buy from you vs. your competitors.
And if your tagline is repeated throughout your marketing, it will start to become ingrained into your potential clients’ psyche, which helps to conjure up positive feelings and associations around your brand.
Going back to the example with Apple’s tagline “Think Different”, this phrase implicitly implies that Apple is innovative unlike other computer brands in the market.
The tagline reminds people the brand is innovative and thinks outside of the box.
As a result, Apple has now become closely associated with the word “innovative” and is widely recognized as a revolutionary technology company.
Additionally, people who also want to be viewed as “out of the box thinkers” and “innovators” gravitated towards the brand and became loyal customers because it gave them permission to be free thinkers and to be themselves.
So how do you create a memorable tagline for your life coaching business?
How to Create Your Coaching Tagline: The 5 Key Steps
Creating a tagline isn’t as simple as brainstorming words or phrases you like.
Your tagline has to be both memorable and meaningful.
Here are the five main steps I take my clients though before creating their tagline.
- Understand Your Clients
Your tagline doesn’t just represent what you do, but it also answers specific desires your clients want.
Ask yourself: “What’s the one thing my clients desire right now?”
During this process you want to be very clear on the biggest desire of your clients. This will help you determine what message to focus on.
For example, Visa’s tagline is “Everywhere you want to be”.
This tagline is very successful because it represents the global nature of the brand and that the credit card is accepted by all businesses around the world. People know that if they travel, they can rely and trust on their Visa card.
Visa’s audience desires hassle free spending no matter where they are. - Understand Your Value & Your Stand
Your tagline needs to tell your audience how you are different from your competitors and what the benefit is by buying from you. This is your value in the market.
People buy from you based on the benefit you provide, so if you can paint a picture of that benefit, they’ll be more likely to buy from you.
Ask yourself:
“What makes me different from my competitors?“
“What brings value to my clients?“
“What’s my stand?“
These three questions help you determine what is most important to include in your tagline that best represents your brand.
For example, Southwest’s tagline is “Low fares. Nothing to hide.That’s Transparency.” perfectly summarises the brand essence.
Southwest was built on the concept of LUV and providing excellent service to their customers.
So when other airlines started charging for checked luggage, change fees, extended leg-room and other fees, Southwest started using this tagline to show their differentiation.
Immediately their customers know that they’ll receive the best price by booking with them and they won’t be surprised by any extra fees on the trip. For customers who don’t want surprises and want transparency this is a huge benefit of flying with Southwest.
And Southwest believes in transparency, so having it in their tagline reinforces this association with their brand. - Make it Simple
Memorable taglines are the simplest taglines. During this process you’ll want to make sure that each word has a powerful meaning that resonates with your audience.
As you create your tagline, ask yourself: How can I simplify the tagline even more?
For example, Nike’s “Just Do It” tagline is as simple as you can get. But the simplicity is what makes it the most effective.
The three words represent a rallying cry to go for things, even when there’s a challenge, even when you don’t feel like it, and even when you don’t think it’s possible. It pushes you to go beyond what you thought was possible.
The hardest thing to do is distilling down your brand into a simple phrase. - Convey Emotion
Your tagline should also conjure an emotion with your potential clients.
Emotion is what sells. That’s why 95% of all purchases are made on an emotional level.
Ask yourself: “What emotions do I want my potential clients to feel when they think of my brand?”
There are many emotions you can choose from. Pick emotions that best represent your brand.
Examples of emotions are: Happy, Free, Excited, Loved, Serene, Refreshed, Surprised, etc.
For example, Kay Jewelers’ tagline, “Every kiss begins with Kay”, does a brilliant job of conveying the emotion of love.
It’s associating their jewelry with special moments between a couple.
However, the emotion doesn’t have to be explicitly stated in the tagline.
For example, Airbnb’s tagline, “Belong Everywhere”, conjures up the feeling of being accepted and fitting in. It also brings up the emotion of feeling safe in a new environment.
Travelers don’t have to feel out of place in a new city or country. Instead they can instantly be part of the local community by renting from Airbnb. - Consistently Deliver on Your Tagline
Because your tagline represents your brand essence, you need to also make sure that your brand can consistently deliver what your tagline states.
Your tagline is only as good as your ability to reinforce it with your brand.
For example, United’s tagline, “Come Fly the Friendly Skies” came into heavy criticism and mockery when a passenger being dragged down the aisle of one of their flights went viral.
Additionally, the brand has increased fees and taken away services over the years, making flying less enjoyable for their passengers.
Just because you have a memorable tagline, doesn’t mean you can ignore other parts of your brand experience. Your tagline can be strengthened or weakened based on the experience you create and consistently reinforcing the positive attributes of your tagline.
Ask yourself: “Can I consistently deliver an experience that supports my tagline?”
An example of a brand that exemplifies their tagline throughout their brand is Drybar.
Their tagline is “No Cuts. No Color. Just Blowouts.”
Their sole focus is to provide the best blowout experience whether that is in the salon or with the products they sell for people to do blowouts at home.
Drybar is successfully consistent with their brand taglines when creating new products and marketing campaigns. Their customers know exactly what they are experts in and have full faith they will deliver the best blowout results.
Now that we’ve covered the 5 steps to creating your tagline, let’s put everything together.
How to put together your tagline: Examples of taglines that work
First, you’ll want to start by creating a main sentence you want to convey through your tagline.
Let’s say for example, you are a life and health coach who helps moms become healthier in all areas of their life, especially their body.
Your ideal clients are trying to be healthier, but they are running into roadblocks around finding the time to follow all the healthy “diets” while balancing taking care of their family.
Your biggest differentiating factor is that you believe they don’t have to overhaul their diets to be healthy and it’s all about making better choices in the moment.
A starting sentence for your tagline could be: “Being healthy doesn’t mean you have to overhaul your lifestyle to fit a diet.”
As you refine the tagline, look at what are the key elements you want to keep in the tagline.
For this example, the important elements I’d want to keep is that people don’t need to overhaul their life to fit a diet.
So the revised tagline could be “Undiet Your Life.” or “Live Your Life, Not Your Diet.” or “Health Made Easy.”
If I want to bring emotions into the tagline, I could revise the tagline to be “Don’t Diet. Live Healthy, Be Happy.” or “Healthy, Happy, Free, Live an Undiet Life”.
There’s no definitive way to create your tagline. But following these steps will help guide you towards creating your memorable tagline.
And you can always test your taglines with your ideal clients to see which one they resonate with the most.
How to use your tagline/slogan in your marketing
As I mentioned previously, your tagline is the first impression that you make with your brand. It’ll be one of the first things your potential clients see when they interact with your website, on your social media accounts, or in your marketing.
First, you want to make sure that your brand experience aligns with your tagline. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to look at either your brand or tagline to bring them into congruence.
Then you have a few options of how you could integrate your tagline.
One way is to have the tagline integrated with your logo.
Similar to how Nike and Apple have had their taglines underneath the swoosh or the apple logos, you could have your tagline be directly linked to your logo.
Another way is to use your tagline in your advertising.
This is the most common method to have your tagline be integrated into your brand. It can be at the bottom of your graphics and even the beginning or end of your videos.
The last way to reinforce your tagline with your brand is to use it as a way to end your posts or sales page copy. In essence, your tagline becomes something you sign off with.
For example, if my tagline was “Live Your Life, Not Your Diet”, I could create a signoff based on this.
And remember, live your life, not your diet!
Minling
Your tagline represents your brand and positions your brand in your potential clients’ hearts and minds.
Take time to create your memorable tagline so that the right clients gravitate to you and see you as the only option they want to buy from.
