Successful digital marketing incorporates sharing the story of your brand, sharing what you do, how you do it and why.
To help nail down the focus of your story and the purpose of your business, you should consider creating a mission statement.
They work externally for potential customers and internally for employees. For consumers, it can help you set your brand apart. For employees, it can help keep your team on the same page during branding.
See our nine expert tips to help you build your brand from scratch.
Your mission statement should explain why your business exists and what makes you different while balancing realism with optimism.
Ideally, it should include these four elements:
- The value of your busines
- What is inspiring about your business
- Overall plausibility
- Being specific
Examples of successful mission statements include:
- Google’s mission statement: “Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
- Tesla’s mission statement: “To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”
- LinkedIn’s mission statement: “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”
- Starbucks’ mission statement: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.”
The following are five tips to help you write an effective mission statement for your business.
Combine what you do with your values
To get started, write out what your business does in the most basic terms in no more than one sentence.
Then, list the core values of your business. After that, write an explanation about why your business does what it does.
You can then take these three ideas and proceed to combine and condense as necessary until you end up at a mission statement that both engages and informs.
Think long-term and big picture
It’s not about what’s happening right at this moment with your business. You want to keep your mission statement open enough to account for where your business will be in the future.
For example, just because you might only serve one geographic location right now doesn’t mean that your business won’t expand beyond that over time.
The bigger the picture, the better. Remember, your mission statement is not a detailed business plan.
Keep it short
As you saw in the above examples, a mission statement should be as short and concise as possible. It’s about getting to the point quickly and thus being more memorable.
Resist creating an essay or anything that feels long or drawn out.
One sentence is best but definitely no more than a brief paragraph at most.
Gather feedback
Once you’ve settled on at least one option that you like, start gathering feedback from colleagues and others.
Having more than one option is helpful. And if you have the resources, a focus group from outside your business (and even a second one from within your business) can be very helpful.
Just don’t make knee-jerk changes based on every individual’s opinion. Focus on gathering the data first review it all at one time.
Your mission statement can evolve
Did you know that YouTube began as a video dating site in 2005? Clearly, the world’s biggest video platform has evolved far beyond that initial intention, and you better believe its mission statement has grown with it.
Just like YouTube, you should expect your own business to naturally evolve and grow.
So, keep your mission statement in mind along the way. You can update it as necessary.
In conclusion
Once you’ve arrived at a mission statement you’re proud of, share it everywhere: your website, social media accounts and so on.
This is a statement of what makes your business worth purchasing from and/or working with. Don’t let it get hidden or lost in the natural noise of the internet.
After you create an effective mission statement for your business, consider optimizing your digital marketing process, which includes automation, audience segmentation and enhanced email marketing capabilities, to name a few. DailyStory can help. Schedule your free demo with us today.
