Your brand’s story is crucial to share your businesses’ mission and purpose. But what about the message your story carries?
A message of resilience?
A message of hope?
A call for action-takers to take the first step towards change?
For social enterprises, a powerful message sits atop 5 pillars. These pillars are the foundation that pack a punch, rally the crowds, and bring people together. When your message is clear and powerful, your social business will be able to reach the right stakeholders, donors, and clients who believe just as much in your mission, as you do.
That is why messaging is absolutely necessary for a social enterprise to thrive.
What are the five pillars to a powerful message for social enterprises? Here’s what you need to know:
Your ‘Why’
At the core of your business, you have a reason that pushes you every single day to make a difference. This is your ‘why’.
- Whether you’re working towards a more sustainable future for the world, with recyclable products or ethical production…
- Working towards equal opportunities for lower-income families and their children to receive the proper education and opportunities…
- Or providing access to clean water for rural communities who don’t have the resources…
Your ‘why’ is understanding the reason this matters to you and how the impact you have affects others. If your team is well trained on the ‘why’ behind your social business, each action is taken with purpose and intention because it aligns with your bottom line.
A ‘why’ isn’t only important for building a foundational brand message, it is also key in any and all communication strategies your mission-driven business will be sharing. These are communication strategies through impact reports, social media, or pitches to key stakeholders.
Your Opinions
No opinions = NO difference.
Chances are, you started your social enterprise based on an opinion you had about an issue. Whether you agreed or disagreed with a certain situation, you formed your opinion and decided that you could change it. You HAD to change it.
Without an informed and developed opinion, your message will falter and succumb to peer pressure and trends that arise in your industry. With a strong opinion, your message will always have a moral compass to abide by.
For example, you disagree that it is a woman’s responsibility to ration her personal time outside of work to pick up medication, go to the doctors, etc.
Based on this example, your social impact business is dedicated to providing birth control and gynecologist appointments to women, all through your online platform.
SOCIAL SPOTLIGHT: Pandia Health – a social impact business delivering birth control to women within the United States.
Once you have an established opposing opinion, you know exactly what your business stands for and is against.
PRO TIP: If you’re scared to share your opinions, you won’t make a difference. Learn to be confident in your opinions to stand out and receive the support you need.
What Pisses You Off?
We’re going to get real with you for a second.
We get pissed off when we see social enterprises, mission-driven entrepreneurs, and not-for-profits lose out on the change they can make because they don’t use the power of marketing to make a difference.
We also get pissed off when we’re constantly receiving messages from the world that our messages, whys, and values are not important. We get pissed off when people of color, especially women, are terrified of taking up space and nervous to speak up. We get so pissed off that we know we need to do something about it.
We’ve developed resources, tools, and services to help people of color, social impact businesses, and not-for-profits share their message wildly and with passion, to create the change they know can be achieved.
What pisses you off?
What makes you so angry that you HAVE to, MUST, work towards change? It fills you with hot rage because you know it can be different… and that’s what you’re here to do.
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What Do You Stand For?
You’re here to make change, right?
Your business was started with a mission and a vision to create positive impact on the environment, social issues, the economy, education, and more. So, that means your business stands for something.
Some questions to get you thinking:
- What are you fighting for?
- Who are you fighting WITH? What’s the end goal?
- What fires you up and makes you feel alive?
Deciding what you stand for, whether it be access to quality education, ending modern-day slavery, or creating equal opportunities for underprivileged communities will help take your message off paper and a website, and into the communities you want to impact.
If you don’t stand for anything, you’ll fall for anything. And your message will be weak and watered down.
Your Core Emotion
We believe that there is a core emotion in everything we do. It’s like the guiding light in our actions. It’s a goal we want to share, it’s a feeling we want to emanate, and it’s an emotion we want our audiences to feel.
A branding message needs to emit this emotion, especially as a social enterprise. What is your company’s core emotion?
Start by answering these questions:
- What’s the feeling behind everything you do?
- HOW do you want your audience to feel?
- What’s the end goal of your work?
From there, you’ll have a basis of exactly what you need to craft your powerful message. Use your core emotion as the guide to creating all your communications and marketing materials.
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5 Pillars of a Powerful Message for Social Enterprises
A powerful (AND CLEAR) message gives you:
- A strategized communication strategy
- Visibility and expertise
- Shares your mission to get support you need
Our formula for a powerful social enterprise message:
- Your ‘why’
- Your opinions
- What pisses you off
- What do you stand for
- Your core emotion
From there, you can build out your mission statement, vision statement, elevator pitch, and marketing strategy to share your mission and impact, to increase your support.
Do you feel like people don’t understand how you make an impact and why your social business is important?
Schedule a clarity call to see how we can work together to fix that!
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The Power of Storytelling for Social Businesses
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