This is a guest post from Susie Brown.

Have you ever listened to a speaker, that you were just sure would be able to understand you if you could only talk to them one-on-one?

When a speaker is able to verbalize things which you always had bubbling under the surface, but couldn’t really explain, that inspires trust.

A great tagline is like that speaker who grabs the audience’s attention by verbalizing exactly what the audience needs to hear; a great tagline has that magical power to tell your audience that you are exactly what they have been looking for.

First Step

The purpose of a tagline is to engage your audience, get them interested in who you are, and then sell to them.  And the first step towards doing that is identifying your ideal customer.

The reason you need to identify your ideal customer is because there are certain people who you want to market to, and unless you are Coca-Cola, there are certain people that you don’t want to market to.

Who is NOT your customer?

I count exactly two reasons why certain people wouldn’t fall into your “target customer” category.

1. They don’t want you
2. You don’t want them

I know, that sounds pretty cliché, but before you click off to a different blog post, read on to find out why these two categories are truly important to identify.

1. They don’t want youI like to explain this idea with the “secret sauce” analogy.There are people that simply love biting into a burger and consistently being surprised by the novel taste that comes together from the perfect mix of burger, toppings, and whatever that tantalizing secret sauce is.  Then there are others who would take one bite and say, “Ewww, thousand island on a burger!?”  Your brands’ secret sauce appeals to certain people focus on them, and just on them.
2. You don’t want themBelieve it or not, there are customers that you shouldn’t want.I used to be involved in a yarn store business that marketed to a wide range of customers.  When we discussed our marketing strategies we realized that we were attracting many customers who, although were very nice, were very unprofitable.These customers wanted to chat with the sales clerks for long periods, but rarely purchased more than a few skeins of yarn.  We decided to refocus our marketing efforts on a different target customer group.  Although we never discouraged anyone from coming to make a purchase, which would be discriminatory, we did aim to bring in a more profitable type of customer.

Who IS your customer?

Once you can pinpoint who is not your ideal customer, you can start to focus your marketing efforts on those who ARE your target market.

The Art

The art of a tagline is to create an emotional response and then channel that emotional response into your bank account.  Ehem.  I mean… The purpose of a tagline is to engage your audience, get them interested in who you are, and then sell to them.

Here is a handy exercise designed to identify an artistic tagline message.

• Consider your target customer
• What do they need
• Consider what you do for them
• How do you help them to solve a problem
• Now consider how having that problem and solving it makes them feel

A tagline that connects the target audience on an emotional level is an artistically sound tagline.

The Science

While the tagline should be artistic, in the sense that it emotionally engages the target audience, it also should stick to some more scientific rules too.  Here are some general rules to stick to in order to aim a tagline at your target market with laser-accurate precision.

• Keep it simple
• Keep it clear
• Focus on the consumer
• Make it memorable
• Make it unique
• Express your unique marketing angle

There is no such thing as the perfect one-size-fits all tagline, and even if there was, it would have been  taken already.  The true beauty of great tagline is that it is unique to your business and your relationship with your customers – all you have to do is find yours.

This was a guest post form Susie Brown.

Susie is a FastUpFront Blog contributor and business author. Fastupfront offers an alternative to business loans based on future sales.

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