A tagline serves a huge function; it clarifies what your business does. The important goal isn’t simply to be clever or memorable, but to distill what your business does clearly and concisely. Here is a 3-step exercise for you to write the perfect tagline or slogan for your business:

1

In 3 sentences or less, write out what your business does. What do you offer? How are you different? (Here is a hint: a lot of people have done this on their website’s “about” page and don’t even realize it!) 

2

Make a list of important and strong keywords you may want to incorporate. Consult a thesaurus if needed to explore wording choices.

3

Now, focus on getting that message down to a concise length. Cut, cut, cut!  6 words or less is a good guideline to follow, but it could be as long as 10.   Don’t repeat any of the same words from your company name.   Ideas to consider to chop it down a bit:

▸ Remove articles like “the” “and” to shortened

▸ Drop punctuation

▸ Drop descriptive words/adjectives

  Test your new tagline by saying it aloud. The words should flow easily.   Need a little help? To play around with different ideas and arrangements, Shopify has a crazy cool Slogan Maker.  Just type in a few keywords and Shopify will ping back a whole page of variations! Some are so awful they are funny, but it’s a great way to get your creative juices flowing.

Large, Established Businesses Have Different Tagline Goals Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign is often mentioned in the tagline/slogan context. However, keep in mind that most people already knew what Nike was. They didn’t need to clarify what services or products they provided. Vague worked. Nike needed to make the company feel more relatable in 1988 and less elite, and so the phrase synonymous with the brand was born.  So for everyone else wanting to grow and establish their beautiful businesses– focus on function first, then catchy-ness! 🙂

Other great reads on how to write a tagline: IttyBiz: How to Write a Better Tagline  |  Vine Street Communications: How Long Should a Tagline Be?  |  Small Business Trends: How to Write a Great Tagline or Slogan