Taglines are a creative way to reinforce your brand’s identity and value in the eyes of your customers and prospects. Visible brands we all know and love use taglines in their marketing materials and advertising as a way to connect with their consumers and showcase their brand’s compelling benefit. However, creating a tagline that is differentiated, memorable, short, and pithy, is more difficult than it seems. In Part 1 of this post, I shared a simple strategy to begin creating a tagline for your business, by listing out words, phrases, attributes, and benefits that relate to your brand. With that start, you’re ready for the final steps of creating an effective tagline.

Create your Tagline

Take your sheet of words and use these as inspiration to come up with combinations of words into as many options as possible. With each combo, remember the KISS principle—no more than eight words. Choose words from your list that people can relate to, that are not jargony or too abstract.

You will want to spend some time on this stage of your brainstorming. Let ideas you like marinate for a while in your mind. Give yourself space to come up with original concepts. I recommend mulling the ideas around for at least a week before you settle on any one option. As you begin examining your top options, consider whether that phrase embodies your brand identity, whether it aligns with your businesses’ mission, and how your ideal customer will respond to it. As you brainstorm tagline ideas, you also want to be mindful of how you combine your words. Remember your tagline must be quippy.

If you know a copywriter, this is where their talent comes in handy. But if you’re flying solo here, try to use common tricks like alliteration or consonance to transform your phrases to more pithy ones. Alliteration is a technique I love. With this technique you repeat the first letter of each key word. For example, my current tagline Clarity for your Calling, uses alliteration. Similarly, the tagline in my previous business, Elan Image Management, “Presence with a Purpose,” also used this technique. ‘P’ words are great because there are many great words that start with P that make for powerfully, punchy phrases (see?) With Consonance, there is a repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession (think: "pitter-patter"). A great example of this is in Bounty’s tagline, “The Quicker Picker Upper.”

Another cool technique is using three two-word phrases separated by a period to make a striking overall statement. The US Marine’s tagline, "The Few. The Proud. The Marines." is an excellent example of this technique. Finally, when all else fails, you can keep it REALLY simple by using two or three words as in Nike’s, “Just Do It” or Apple’s “Think Different” or McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It." Once you feel you have a few options that seem good, Illicit the feedback of those you trust. They may have invaluable suggestions that may lead you to tweak your tagline a bit so it is perfect for your brand.

Is it Memorable and Relevant?

By now you should have one or two taglines that feel right, are pithy, are short and ones that hone in on a key benefit. Excellent. The final step is to test driving your taglines by pairing them up with your business name. Which tagline looks visually more appealing with your business's name? Which one sounds just right out loud with your company’s name? Which one does your gut say, is the one? This is the step that drives me crazy when working on taglines for myself or others because it always seems so hard to choose. But here’s a truth that should give you some comfort: taglines, unlike your business’s name, are adaptable. Yes, that’s right. You can easily swap a new tagline for an old one by updating your marketing materials. They’re not as permanent as your business’s name or logo.

As you finalize your tagline, avoid these pitfalls:

• The tagline does not clarify a benefit or product

• The tagline is too long

• The tagline just hangs in the air—has no punch

• The tagline is not memorable, catchy, or clever

• The tagline doesn’t align with your brand positioning

• The tagline sacrifices clarity for cuteness

I’d love your feedback on how this post helped you create a tagline. If you currently use a tagline, please share in the comments.

Natalie Jobity, MPhil, MBA, ACC, founder of The Unveiled Way, is a leadership and career coach, consultant, brand strategist, bestselling author, mentor, speaker, and facilitator who has earned a reputation as "The Brilliance Unveiler." She empowers female leaders to live in the fullness of their purpose and unveil their brilliance by leveraging the power of their strengths, expertise, and distinctiveness, so they make transformative impact in their sphere of influence.

 Visit Natalie’s website to learn more about how she partners with leaders with her signature “Unveil Your Brilliance” program and her "Brand Your Biz Like a Boss" consulting service.  While you’re there, join her Unveiled community and pick up your complimentary copy of her "Empowered to Lead: Seven Strategies to Help You Become a More Impactful Leader" guide.