brand messaging

  • How I helped an eCommerce brand find its voice – and built a brand that feels like home

    When two data-driven founders decided to move beyond Amazon, they knew a logo wasn’t enough. They needed a message they could stand behind – and a brand their customers could believe in.

    The Situation: A product with traction, but no clear identity

    Pulse of Home had a strong foundation. Over 75,000 customers. Great reviews. A growing team. But all of that lived on Amazon (so they couldn’t access vital customer data), with a placeholder brand that didn’t reflect what they were really building.

    They were ready to move to a direct-to-consumer model. But they knew they needed to do it with intention – not just a prettier shopfront, but a brand people could actually connect with. When they came to me, they were clear on what they didn’t want. No vague storytelling. No overly poetic fluff. They wanted a message grounded in truth, empathy, and a deeper understanding of their customers.

    The Goal: A brand that resonates – and scales

    The founders weren’t trying to be influencers or interior designers. They were pragmatic, operations-focused, and working behind the scenes to create a brilliant customer experience. They’d seen a gap in the market that coincided with their skills, and they’d built their business around that.

    But they knew that wasn’t enough. Their ideal customers – style-conscious renters, design lovers on a budget, people who wanted their home to feel like them – needed more to go on than shipping speed and price point. They wanted me to create a story around the brand.

    Our goal was to create a message that could do three things:

    • Reflect the values behind the business (without making them up)
    • Speak directly to the customer’s real-life challenges and aspirations
    • Provide a practical foundation for content, design and future campaigns

    The Process: Listening first, then writing

    A collage of pages from my brand messaging guide for Pulse of Home, including the "our brand voice" page, a title page, and the brand's logo.

    Usually when I’m building a brand story, I start with the founder/s. That’s where I listen to how they built the brand, tap into the emotion and story behind that. But, with Pulse of Home this wasn’t going to work. The emotion – the story – needed to come from somewhere else: their audience. So I went digging.

    Over five weeks, I worked through a combination of:

    • Discovery calls with the founders
    • Forum and review mining for voice of customer data
    • Interviews with five home and lifestyle influencers whose audiences matched their target market

    From this, I developed a full brand messaging guide, including:

    • Brand mission, values and positioning
    • A clear brand voice (optimistic, warm, and encouraging without being overly casual)
    • Two customer avatars drawn from real behaviours and motivations
    • Key messages mapped to different points in the sales cycle
    • Practical copy guidance for social, product pages and customer comms.

    The Outcome: A message the team could actually use

    By the end of the project, Pulse of Home had a clear brand message they could hand off to their web designer, social media manager and future collaborators – confident that everyone would be working from the same core narrative.

    The messaging now runs through their new homepage, product descriptions and social posts. And because it was built around the reality of their customers’ lives, it has made content creation easier, more focused, and more effective.

    They’ve seen a steady increase in visibility and sales since applying the messaging – but just as importantly, the brand now feels like something their team can grow with.

    They have stories they can tell, pictures they can paint, and emotions they can be sure will resonate with their audience.

    A testimonial graphic "I'll keep it short since making words sound pretty is not my best skill (hers is). She nailed it on the spot. 

She helped us build a cohesive brand identity, which will help us build our brand into one of the main brands in our niche. Having a cohesive brand is more important than ever, either for community building or having an actual moat in an all-commoditized market." Julian and Simon, Pulse of home Founders

    So what?

    If you’re a founder who’s used to thinking in numbers, customer service tickets and logistics dashboards, it’s not always easy to talk about brand.

    This project shows what’s possible when you pair strategic clarity with human insight. You can create messaging that feels like a natural extension of the business itself, while tapping into the exact emotions your audience are feeling. Meaning they actually want to buy from you!

    Is this you? Are you struggling to excavate a compelling story from your successful (but sterile) brand? You can find out more about my Brand Messaging Guides here.

    Then you should book a call – and I’ll show you how I can help.

    Carry on reading

  • Consistent Brand Messaging: The secret to never running out of things to say

    Consistent brand messaging

    Every Friday morning, I rock up to an upstairs room in a local pub, wearing a red and white badge with my name on it. I pop a smile on my face, a security blanket cup of coffee in my hand, and meet with 40 other local business owners.

    Yes, I have joined a cult.

    But I promise, I’m fine (I don’t need a “Blink twice if you need rescuing” intervention).

    In fact, I’ve brought in a considerable amount of revenue since I joined back in June.

    The challenge of consistent brand messaging in networking

    My local BNI Chapter is full of inspiring, ambitious people. They’re funny, kind, generous, and driven. And every week we all get 30 seconds to tell the room about our businesses and let them know what we need – who we’re looking to be introduced to, what offers we currently have, which clients we’d like to work with.

    The first time I had to do this – I was terrified.

    And terrible.

    The second time? I was a little more prepared (although I still forgot to breathe).

    As I got into the swing of things it became less nervewracking. And, you know, I’m good with words (duh), so I had an advantage.

    When consistent brand messaging feels like a struggle

    But, as the weeks went on, I started to get a little stuck.

    I’d educated the room on what copywriting actually was and wasn’t. I’d explained to them the value a conversion-focused copywriter can bring to their business – in added traffic and revenue. I’d laid out how my approach was maybe a little different with its focus on empathy and research.

    But one morning, sitting down to work out what I was going to say in my 30 seconds, I began to panic. 50 weeks a year. How on earth was I going to explain my business each week without boring everyone?

    Surely there are only so many ways to describe what I do and why it’s awesome?

    The foundation of consistent brand messaging

    But, it turns out I didn’t need to be worried.

    Why?

    Because of the invaluable information I have at my disposal, information that makes it easy to be creative while sticking to the point:

    • I know my brand
    • I know my voice
    • I know my ideal client
    • I know the unique value I provide
    • I know what services I want to offer
    • I know my key brand messages
    • And I know which messages work at which stage of the buyer journey.

    These slabs of concrete are the foundation my brand is built on – the things that keep me steady in the face of nerves, tiredness, and people who don’t really know what copywriting is.

    They are the key to consistent brand messaging (something even Forbes thinks should be integral to your business strategy).

    Leveraging your brand knowledge for consistent messaging

    With all this information, I can create endless 30 second snippets that consistently reinforce who I am, what I do, and why they should care in the people sitting in that room.

    That’s also how I create relevant and on-message social content. Content that brings me impressions, engagement, connections, and qualified leads in my inbox. It’s how I keep a consistent brand message without being so generic and repetitive that it turns into background noise.

    The Brand Messaging Guide: your tool for consistency

    This is also how my clients use their Brand Messaging Guides. Once they’ve got the foundations of their brand in place, they have the tools they need to communicate consistent brand messaging:

    • Brand Voice
    • Brand Story
    • Brand Archetype
    • Customer Avatars with pain points and dreams
    • Potential objections and how to overcome them
    • Key Messages
    • Competitive analysis and positioning
    • Unique value propositions and elevator pitches

    They can create (or have their team create) blog content, social content, pitch decks, sales pages, email newsletters, and BNI presentations based on the Guide. Safe in the knowledge that they’re being consistent and on message at all times. Building that know, like, and trust factor.

    Embracing consistent brand messaging

    So, I didn’t need to worry as I wandered into that networking meeting for the first time – I’ll find another 52 ways to tell people about my business, no problem.

    How about you?

    Feeling a little stuck with your brand messaging? Not sure how to keep it consistent across all your platforms and interactions? It might be time for a Brand Messaging Guide of your own.

    Book a free strategy call, and let’s talk about how we can make your brand messaging as consistent and compelling as a Netflix binge-watch. (You know, the kind where you suddenly look up, and it’s 3am, and you’re surrounded by empty snack wrappers. But in a good way.)

    Carry on reading