How to write a great tagline for your business

Can you be concise and catchy at the same time?

We often take taglines for granted, because they’re just, well, there. But a great tagline is a triumph of simplification; it’s what you’re not seeing that represents the work that was invested in creating it. Kind of like that great Dolly Parton quip: “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap!”

In other words, prepare to do a lot of work to craft just a few words. Here are some tips to get you started on the right track: 

• Who’s the audience? Often a tagline will need to reach a pretty broad audience, but knowing the gamut of your targets will help give you some guard rails in terms of tone and cultural references you can play on/off of.

• Consider the solution. Obviously, your business provides products or services. But what does that translate to in the customer’s life? What’s the benefit in terms of productivity, happiness, or status?

• Tune the tone. What emotion best captures how customers will feel when they think of your business? Jot down a big list of emotions, and when you’re done, see which ones leap out at you as the best ones for setting your tagline’s tone. Ideally, you already have a “brand voice/personality” document written; if so, use this as your guide.

• Give it legs. If you make green widgets today, what are the odds you’ll offer multicolored widgets next year? Don’t lock yourself in too tightly; you want your tagline to have an effective lifespan.

• Develop your keywords. Start brainstorming a list of words that have to do with your product, service, the emotions you want to convey, what the customers will achieve with you, and so on. Go crazy. Write as many as you can. Free-associate. Go wherever it takes you. Make the list as long as you can, then make it longer. These aren’t taglines; they’re more like an inspiration library that will help you later.

• Leverage resources. Think your list was done? Wrong. Pick up the dictionary, and see all the entries that flow to and from some of your important keywords: as you scan the lists, cool entries will jump at you. Write them down. Google the good words for common expressions, classic book titles, public-domain lyrics, and so on (you want to find common/familiar expressions you can spin to your advantage). Use a rhyming dictionary or a site like Rhymezone to find rhymes for some of your favorite keywords.

• Start tagging. Go through your list of keywords and start brainstorming tagline ideas, using it as your starting point/inspiration. Again, go for extreme quantity. Don’t pre-judge. Feel free to try multiple versions of the same tagline, but with different capitalization or punctuation (you can compare the versions later).

• Play with wordplay. One of our favorite taglines from a few years back was “Life Takes Visa.” Not only is it unbeatably simple, but it also plays off of two different meanings of the word “take.” On the one hand, it plays off of the phrase, “Do you take Visa?”, meaning “Do you accept Visa?” and “Life requires Visa,” as in “It takes a lot to get through life.” One we did for a business-development firm was “Let The Gains Begin.” The play off of the well-known (and public-domain) expression “Let the games begin” is pretty obvious, and the client liked it. It had just the right combination of confidence and edge that they were looking for.

• Walk away. Go to bed. Sleep on it. Come back to it the next day and jot down more keywords and ideas. Go work out—and keep your smartphone handy to record ideas that come to mind when you’re in the zone. Think of the project in the shower, and keep a diver’s slate handy to write down ideas underwater.

• Cull and rank. From your big list, work up a semi-short list. From this list, rank them: put your favorites at the top. See how they look. Speak them aloud and hear how they sound.

• Search for conflicts. Google your favorite new tagline(s) to see if anyone else has already used and/or registered them with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office or other body such as the International Trademark Gazette. You might need to toss some you like, but take heart that great minds think alike!

• Do it again. Don’t be surprised if you have to start the entire process all over again. It simply takes a lot of work to make a great tagline.

• Consider getting help. Some people find working on a tagline to be a liberating and mind-expanding pursuit. Others consider it a daunting task. If you’re one of the latter, or simply want to keep your time free for core activities, consider bringing in expert help. The results will be the best you can get, and the investment will pay strong dividends. Contact us and let’s get a quote in your hands.

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