Before we officially dive into this module, I'd like to take a moment to walk through the brand messaging guide. Here, linked below, you will find this brand messaging guide template. It's a Google Docs template that you can use to write your brand messaging in. There are six parts to the brand messaging guide, all of which we will go be going over in this module.

There's brand positioning, which includes messaging goals, your actual positioning language, your founder's story, and something called the Golden Circles, which we'll get into more detail about. If you've read the Simon Sinek book Start With Why or watched his TED Talk, that may give you a little bit of context.

Then we also have the brand language, so taglines, clarifiers, your mission, and also a proposed headline for your homepage. So we're already going to be working on copy for your website.

By the time we get to your website, we will already have some working language and it will be more a matter of structuring than writing from scratch. Then we have target audience, so that will be your client persona. We'll also be bringing in some of your customer phrasing from your customer research, and talking about stage of awareness, so how much they know about your services and where they are in the customer journey

Next we'll be doing the Storybrand framework. We will be walking through Donald Miller's signature framework which includes the character, their problem, you as the guide, the plan, their success, and the ultimate transformation.

Next, we'll be doing Brand Heart, which includes vision, values, philosophies and inspirations. Finally, the brand voice, your voice and tone, your hallmarks, personality, and verbal landscape.

This may feel like a lot on the face of it, but we're going to be going through each section carefully and intentionally so you know exactly what to do, exactly what to write, and how all of these sections function so you can confidently write yours and know exactly how it's going to be functioning within your brand.

Again, once you complete this brand messaging guide, you're going to be equipped with brand language that you can use throughout the rest of this course. This is going to be something that you can refer back to even after this program is completed as well. 

This will be on view only, so make a copy, add it to your Drive, and then you can go ahead and make edits yourself and you'll have all the sections that you need.

We'll be going through each one step by step. Something you may notice, if you're looking at the modules right now, you may actually see that they're not in this exact order. I'm having you go in different order. We're not necessarily just going to start right at the beginning and go step by step. We're actually going to be starting with brand voice, and you'll see my rationale for that once you watch the next module.

Lesson One: Brand Messaging Guide Overview