The 3 Cs of brand messaging: Consistency, clarity and character

Marketer Abdaraouf Zouai discusses the values that will help you  clearly articulate your brand message to customers. 

Your branding expresses what your products and services are, along with your true business values and your identity. It is a testament to your personality and characteristics – essentially who you are and what individuals think of you. This all communicated through your brand's messaging: your brand name, slogan, logo, and social media messaging.

Questions that this article answers:

1. How do you create a brand message that proposes value?
2. What is the 3 Cs model of brand messaging?

How do you create a brand message that proposes value?

The core principles of brand messaging lie in the practicality of language and delivery of the content. The content should be strong enough to make buyers relate to the product and want to buy it.

Basic aspects to keep in mind when creating an effective brand message

1. Vision – You should have a clear plan and brand boundaries in order to have effective messaging.
2. Mission – What are you expecting to achieve? Define and align your short-term and long-term goals.
3. Value proposition – Convey the differentiator that will attract your customers to buy the product.
4. Target customer – You need an understanding of who the customers are for your products to create the right messaging.
5. Tagline – Create a tagline that is appealing and attractive enough to remain in the conscious/subconscious minds of customers for a long time.

Become a CX Network member and gain exclusive access to our upcoming digital events, industry reports and expert webinars

What is the 3 Cs model of brand messaging?

Brand messaging is hard work. After all, you want to create a positive brand impression that does not get lost in translation. Articulate your brand message and values clearly by following the 3 Cs model of brand messaging: consistency, clarity and character.

Consistency

Social media is a powerful and invaluable marketing weapon that can increase brand awareness, connect you with your customers, drive organic traffic to your website and generate leads – if managed effectively and efficiently. Being efficient means doing things right, while being effective means doing the right things.

Share unique, high quality, valuable content. Make it compelling and share-worthy. Why? Because it helps your brand rank better in searches. After all, if no one is engaging with your content or visiting your website how can you convert prospects into long term, loyal customers?

Brand messaging is a lot like a first date. If all you do is talk about yourself, do not expect a second date. Don’t be pushy or over promotional. It takes ages to find a customer, but only mere seconds to lose one.

Related content: Magic mirrors and virtual art: modern luxury goes digital

Quality content gets rewarded, so make sure that you update it regularly. Be consistent and creative with it, and don’t be afraid to be bold and stand out from the noisy competition.

Getting shares on social media gives your brand more visibility and helps determine your website’s relevancy. Add social media share buttons and calls to action to your blog posts, and give your audience a compelling reason to share your content.

Sharing good quality content on your brand’s social media networks gets you more likes, shares and links from other brand websites. These social signals show search engines your brand’s relevancy and boosts your website’s search rankings. The more social signals you have the better. 

Your brand messaging should be consistent and clear universally, not just on your social networks. Everything must work together in unison: your website, packaging, brand logo, and your advertising campaigns.

Clarity

Ensure that your brand’s communication is concise, powerful and clear. Don’t be afraid to use language that your audience is using. How can you avoid brand distortion, confusion and lack of clarity? Focus on one thing that you do well instead of dipping your toes into several pools. If you can’t clearly define and communicate your brand message, be prepared to lose  customers.

Successful brand communications have a clear, focused, single message. If your brand value is not clear in your messaging, your audience will not understand what your value offering is and why you exist, even if do you have what they are looking for. Inevitably, they will go elsewhere if it is not clear what you offer or do.

A clear message is one that possesses these four things:

• What you do
• What differentiates you from competitors
• What your value proposition is
• What issues you can solve for your customers, and how 

Character

Humanise your brand and keep it real. Interact with your customers, listen to them and engage with them – social media is not a one-way conversation.  Your customers are real people, so ask yourself: "what makes us human?"  Interconnectedness with other humans, forming relationships, feeling emotions, having conversation and opinions.

Don’t be afraid to inject a little humour into your brand, as long as it fits your brand’s identity and character.

Connect with your customers, but remember to always leave them wanting more. Use storytelling to bring your brand to life and generate higher engagement, and share engaging and compelling visual brand stories. 

If you found this article helpful, you can share it with your professional network on LinkedIn, or with the wider world on Twitter.

Quick links

The lowdown on ChatGPT and what it thinks of CX

Transforming customer centricity with Stan Swinton

Everything you need to know about customer loyalty in 2023: A CX Network Guide