Why Creating Your Business Slogans Drives You Crazy

Here is a challenge.
Walk up to your customer, any customer, and ask them to say your tagline without looking at your business card. And look at that customer’s face.

First there is confusion.
Then there is a desperate thrust at conjecture.
And finally, they give up in feigned terror.

Do you see what just happened?

That wonderful slogan that is in your brochure, on your website and on your business card has been forgotten by one and all. It seems that none of your customers can remember your catchphrase.

And frankly, no one should.

Because the purpose of a slogan is not necessarily based on memory.

The main purpose of a tagline is to create curiosity.
It is an attraction device. Nothing else. Nothing less.

The slogan is supposed to attract the customer. And have them ask the question: ‘How do you do that?’ Or ‘What do you mean by that?’

And having piqued the customer’s curiosity, the tagline should step back and let the rest of the marketing material speak for itself.

However, despite the apparent simplicity, trying to come up with a tagline will drive you crazy for three reasons.

Reason 1: Too many thoughts in one slogan.
Reason 2: Lack of the combination of problem + solution + target audience.
Reason 3: Not recognizing that each product/service should have a different slogan from the company’s slogan.

So, let’s tackle Reason 1: Too many thoughts in one slogan.
A catchphrase can have rampant thoughts running through it. And you must be able to convey the slogan to a single thought.

For example: Remove obstacles to high-level sales and create loyal customers.
Check it out? Two thoughts there. ‘Remove obstacles’ as well as ‘create loyal customers’.
So pick one now. Because when you choose one, clarity manifests. If you drop one of the two thoughts, you get a thought that is very clear.

You get: Remove obstacles to high-level sales.
Simple. Clear. And it makes the curiosity meter beep immediately.

Which brings us to Reason 2: Lack of problem + solution + target audience combination.

So what do the problem, the solution and the target audience have to do with the slogans?

Let’s analyze the above slogan.
Problem: Blocks to high-level sales.
Solution: Remove the obstacles.
Target audience: not just any sale, but high-level sales.

And just for the fun of it, let’s remove one of the elements, one by one, and see if it has the same impact.
When we remove the specific target audience, we get: Remove obstacles to sales.
When we eliminate problems, we get: Helping you close high-level sales.
When we remove the fix, we get: (No, you can’t remove the fix without completely reducing power.)

The catchphrase, as you can see for yourself, is most effective when you have the combination of all three.
Yes, it can be run without the specificity of a target audience. And yes, we can leave ‘the problem’ like a hot potato.
You can cut and change all you want, but if you want extreme curiosity, keeping the problem + solution + goal trio makes a lot of sense.

But there is still a very confusing factor.

It is Reason 3: Not recognizing that each product/service requires a different slogan from the company’s slogan.

Your company slogan may seem powerful. After all, if you were to use the term: removing obstacles to high-level sales, you’d get more than your fair share of attention.

But even a great line like that wouldn’t work well if you were selling a slightly different product/service.

For example, if you offer a service that shows how to “make effective presentations to increase sales conversions,” then your tagline should reflect that specific audience: those interested in presentations.
And you need to address the problem related to giving presentations – this problem could be ‘fear’.

When we add the problem + the solution + the objective and put in the ‘individual product/service’ portion, we would get something like this:
Eliminating the fear of sales presentations.

Now let’s compare the two slogans side by side.

Company motto: Remove obstacles to high-end sales
Specific Service Tagline: Taking the Fear Out of Sales Presentations

Do you see now why each product; Should each service have a slogan related only to that product or service?
Because? I already told you why.

The purpose of the slogan is not a grandiose statement.

It’s not even a memory hook.
It’s just a way to gain momentum. Just the way to make the client go to the main message. So if your main message is to detail what your company excels at, then put the company tagline.

If you have a product/service that deviates even slightly from the company message, as it will, then make the tagline specific to that product or service, and don’t just put your company tagline everywhere .

So if you’re doing a presentation with a specific topic tagline, it’s a great way to keep your audience warmed up.

If your tagline is on your website, the tagline is just a precursor to the product/service you will follow.
If you’re about to make that elevator pitch, your catchphrase gets the customer interested in a specific product or service before the elevator even rings.

Curiosity.
That’s all a slogan has to create.
Nothing else. Nothing less.