Agencies, Freelancers, Design, Copywriting & more.: [Copyblogger] Does Your Tagline Create Clarity or Mystery?

Does Your Tagline Create Clarity or Mystery?

Does Your Tagline Create Clarity or Mystery?

Mystery Box

1,000 songs in your pocket.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? You may recognize that marketing message from one of the biggest companies around today.

Or you may not.

It doesn’t matter if you recognize who crafted that tagline, because you know what you’re getting right away—1,000 songs in your pocket. You don’t know how that happens or why, but it’s irrelevant. You know at a glance that whatever the product, it’s going to give you tons of music in a small package you can carry around.

Now that’s smart.

Apple thought the message was pretty smart as well, and they turned that tiny tagline into a marketing campaign that rocked the iPod.

Let’s use another tagline example and see how it compares to iPod’s message:

Innovative solutions for the future.

Hmm. Do you know what you’re getting when you read that?

“Sure. Innovative solutions,” you might answer.

What kind of solutions? Why are they innovative? Who cares if they’re innovative anyways? The solutions are supposed to solve a problem, but what problem is that to begin with? Do you have this problem? Do you need this?

You can’t tell. So what do you do? Nothing. You move on. You can get 1,000 songs in your pocket, so who cares about your future? Besides, you probably can’t see anything dramatically wrong with your future that requires an immediate must-have solution anyways.

If you can’t deliver a message in a handful of words to consumers, you’ve missed the target. Depending on people’s curiosity to click through and check out your product or service is a huge mistake – and it’s common, too.

Businesses come up with these types of marketing messages all the time. They’re so full of themselves that they can’t even simply describe what they’re selling. They try to tease consumers, thinking that some clever little mystery will have people clicking through to read more on the website.

Nope. It ain’t gonna happen.

People don’t have the time, the interest, or even the inclination to bother figuring out what a company offers. They have problems and they want solutions.

Here. Now. Fast.

Take a look at your website’s tagline. What message is it giving people? Is it clear? Does it describe what you sell? Do people know what they’ll get from you?

iPod knew what they sold. 1,000 songs in your pocket. It was that clear, that simple – and that effective.

About the Author: For more effective words, visit James Chartrand at Men with Pens. Want to get them right in your pocket? Grab the Men with Pens RSS feed.