As you already know, effective branding makes attracting new ideal clients easier. Along with your business name, your slogan and tagline are important pieces of branding that should quickly and efficiently convey information to a potential ideal client.

A well-crafted tagline is an opportunity to convey additional information about your client experience that is not typically included in the business name. Though many people get the concept of taglines and slogans confused, a tagline is very different from a slogan. While a slogan succinctly describes what you do and for whom, a tagline should describe a feeling or potential benefit your clients get from engaging in your services. (If you need a refresher, click here for my previous post on creating a slogan.)

Take this American Express tagline: “Don’t leave home without it.” This implies that American Express will be there for you, that you can count on them. Allstate’s tagline “You’re in good hands,” and Capital One’s “What’s in your wallet?” impart similar connotations and feelings related to the desired client experience.

When you create your tagline keep in mind your ideal client experience that you’d like to relay to your clients and prospects. I invite you to try this exercise:

Step 1:

Define the desired client experience. From a company perspective, what are you committed to providing, achieving, or producing for your clients? What are you most inspired about that you deliver for your clients? What are your clients biggest needs?

An example: your client experience might be helping business owners with the structure to achieve financial success and helping them best manage their money while investing for the future.

Step 2:

Clarify the results your clients experience. This might include support staying on track for a college savings plan, retirement savings, financial milestones like buying a vacation home, or having a legacy plan in place to take care of their family and organizations they are committed to.

Step 3:

What are your clients most grateful for with regards to your services? This an important step because it will help you get to the more emotional perspective of this process.

Here are a few questions to consider: What do you hear from your clients about your services? What do they thank you for, and when? Is it after you’ve reviewed your comprehensive financial plan and they have clarity about their financial future? Is it after you’ve had an annual review with them, and you’ve gone over reports and answered all their questions about where they are in relation to their goals and any potential changes they should make?

Step 4:

Put the pieces together from the previous three steps in a way that flows and speaks to the full experience of what you’re committed to delivering as your overall client experience.

For example: if you have a financial services company focused on supporting women entrepreneurs with financial planning and investment management, a potential tagline could be: Helping women achieve their dreams.

By getting to the emotional heart of your client experience, potential ideal clients will more easily understand the benefits of what you offer and feel more compelled to hire you. On the other hand, a weak or lackluster tagline is a missed opportunity to attract more ideal clients and revenue to your financial services business.

While I have broken down the process of creating your own tagline into a simple one, it can be hard to come up with something impactful and powerful on your own. If you would like help crafting or redesigning a tagline for your financial services business, I invite you to reach out to me today. I would love to talk with you. Email me at susan@susandanzig.com.