Shake Up Your Message: The 4Ps of Brand Messaging
As business owners, we spend an ungodly amount of time thinking about our brand’s messaging – even if we don’t know that we’re thinking about our brand’s messaging.
Messaging is the strategy behind what we’re saying to get attention.
We want eyes on our brand, our offers, and our services, so we need some sort of guidepost that outlines what we say to make that happen. That’s really all that messaging is – the gameplan for what to say about our things.
Here’s the plot twist: We make this way harder than it needs to be.
When we’re close to something, we know all its inner workings – we complicate it. We forget what to say to make someone not in our shoes care about the thing we’re doing, sharing, or selling. The result? We freeze. We pause. We don’t know what to say, so we don’t say anything at all. And honestly, pal, that’s not helping either. We need a way to simplify brand messaging.
We don’t always need a whole-a** messaging makeover to remedy this freeze.
Sometimes, you just need a little hot jolt of inspo to shake up the way you’ve been thinking about messaging.
And that’s exactly what this blog is intended for. In this blog, we’re going to talk about the 4Ps of brand messaging and how you can shake up your strategy with a swap in perspective.
Shake Up Your Brand’s Messaging Freeze with the 4 Ps
Lil Key Takeaways: This Blog at a Glance
Messaging = Your Game Plan – Messaging is just what you say to make people care about your thing. Simple as that.
The 4Ps Are a Quick Fix – Stuck on what to say? Walk through People, Problems, Promises, and POVs to shake it loose.
People – Who’s It For? – Be blunt. Who needs this? Who doesn’t? Get specific.
Problems – What’s Bugging Them? – What’s keeping them up at night—and how does your thing fix it?
Promises – What’s the Payoff? – What are you promising they’ll walk away with? Be real and clear.
POVs – Why You? – What makes your thing different? Say it like you mean it.
No Overhaul Needed – Sometimes, you just need a little reset. The 4Ps = instant clarity.
Mini Messaging Marker – my 10-min training walks you through the 4Ps in detail and gives you a hot jolt of inspo on what to say to sell your latest & greatest thing
The Messaging Basics: What is Brand Messaging
Messaging used to scare the ever-lovin’ stuffing out of me, but that was before I did a personal rebrand of it to make it less spooky for my brain.
Messaging truly is just the what stuff – the game plan for what you’re gonna say about your latest & greatest thing so it clicks with the right people.
If you want to know what to say about your offer, service, or brand, messaging is the guidepost that reminds you what you’re all about, why you’re all about it, and who you’re all about.
Your messaging is simply what informs everything you say about your brand, your offer, your service, or your latest thing.
Need to update your website copy? Pull out your messaging guide.
Writing emails to your list about your new offer? Get that messaging guide out.
Want to update your IG bio? That’s a job for your messaging guide, too.
Messaging guides exist to stack the juicy details about your stuff so that you never skip out on the powerful messaging points that connect the dots for your people. And when you pair that with your sticky brand voice, it should get your audience hype – they’ll realize they’ve finally found you, the one they’ve been looking for all along.
There’s no shame in needing a messaging crash course (no matter how long you’ve been in business), so if you’re lookin’ for a quick lesson on messaging, take a peek at my Messaging 101 blog. If you need to get the scoop first, no sweat – just come on back here to learn how to shake things up.
Above all, here’s the question your messaging should answer: What do I want to communicate above all else?
Every answer to that question needs to go into your messaging guide.
The Hot Jolt You Came Here For: The 4Ps of Brand Messaging
Anytime I work with a client who’s struggling with what to say about their latest thing, I ask them to rattle off their 4Ps.
People
Problems
Promises
POVs
This quick and easy exercise can be a real eye-opener that shakes up how you think about messaging.
It’s also a down ‘n’ dirty way to get you out of your messaging rut and de-spookify the concept of messaging so you can start making waves with your latest offer.
Let’s give this a go together.
Pick an offer, a service, or a resource that needs some powerful messaging guidelines
Walk yourself through these four different angles and see what you come up with for what to say and who to say it to
People
You can’t truly outline what you want to say until you know who you’re saying it to. Ask yourself, who is this offer actually for?
Try your gut reaction first. What’d you come up with? Don’t be afraid to be blunt. I can’t tell you how many times my gut reaction answer has simply been “service providers.” Accept it, roll with it, and be direct. What do they do?
After you’ve got the gut thing going, try to get a little dreamy with it. That blunt answer gets a makeover. Picture the dreamiest client you can imagine for this service or offer. Imagine everything about them aligns with what your brand is and who it's serving.
Here are a few prompts to get this P rolling:
Who am I looking for?
What do they do?
What do they care about?
Who is this offer, launch, or service specifically for?
Who is this not for?
Who do they need in this industry?
Problems
You’ve got your who on lock – now it’s time to figure out what they care about. What pain points or problems are they actually dealing with?
Here’s an important disclaimer: it’s important to be straight up here. A lot of times, we want to believe our thing is solving a problem our people are having, but we don’t have any evidence that the problem actually exists.
Consult with your people, look at your testimonials, and poll your audience. What are your ideal people really dealing with? Then, further, how does this offer solve that problem?
Promises
You’ve locked down a few problems your people are dealing with. Your offer? It’s designed to help solve some of those issues and promise them something.
So, what are you promising them? What can you tangibly and ethically solve for your people with your offer?
Your promise should be based on a few different things:
What your people really want (so think about their desires!)
What you can actually deliver (what they’ll actually have after your offer)
What transformation they can experience
POVs
Finally, ask yourself – what about this offer or service embodies my POV?
What’s actually different about it?
POVs are sometimes called key differentiators or unique selling points. Whatever you call them, they’re all about what makes you or your offer different than the other stuff out there.
This really gets people worked up in knots, so I always say this: These are the things about your offer that you’d say with your whole chest. It’s the stuff that you’d want to make sure someone knows if you have 30 seconds to get them to understand how unique and special this thing is.
Lookin’ for a Hotter Jolt? Mini Messaging Marker Can Help
I know the struggle of figuring out what to say about your stuff. That’s why I created Mini Messaging Marker, a 10-minute messaging training that gives you a hot jolt of inspo on what to say to sell your latest & greatest thing.
I’ll personally walk you through the 4Ps, share examples with you as we go, and help you create powerful messaging points to sell or share your offer.
If you’re more about that live, 1:1 help, I’ve got you covered there, too. Messaging strategy and brand voice strategy (and helping them work together) are some of my favorite services to offer my clients. If you wanna chat about how I can refine and refresh your messaging, click the contact link (or press right here, pal) to inquire.
