I facilitated an Elevator Speech workshop for our clients last week.  People did great work in the session and left with a new elevator pitch or polished up their old one.  What’s next?  Developing a good Tagline.  What is it?  A single phrase or sentence that describes your primary benefit.  Notice I didn’t say your primary product or offering – but your primary benefit.

Your customers and prospective customers invest in the outcome, usually not the “thing” or service you have for sale.  Apple used a great Tagline for the launch of their very first iPod:  “1,000 songs in your pocket.”  Notice they didn’t talk in geek-speak about megabytes of storage or anything technical – just the simple outcome that people were looking for – the benefit.  Instead of carrying around hundreds of CDs, you could carry your entire music collection around in the palm of your hand.  Nice benefit!  They sold 236,000 of the first generation iPods in less than a year.  The Tagline got the prospect’s attention; the quality of the product closed the sale.

To create your Tagline, focus on the primary benefit or value your product or service provides.  What is uniquely different about your offer?  Create a brainstorming list of words and phrases related to your primary benefit, then experiment with different ways to connect them into a short phrase.  This may not be a one sitting exercise for you.  Keep the creative juices flowing and before you know it you’ll find something that really works for you.  If you’re having trouble, call to make an appointment and we’ll so some brainstorming together.

Once you have a tagline what do you do with it?  Use it everywhere – your website, your business cards, at the end of your elevator pitch.  The Tagline grabs the attention and the rest of your marketing and sales efforts close the deal.

Taglines…..the lines you remember.  The better your Tagline, the more attention you’ll grab and the easier it will be for your best customers to easily talk about you.  Give them something memorable to say!

Do you know the CBI’s tagline?  “Where Growing Your Business is Our Business.”  Have you started talking about the CBI yet?