The hard lesson most internal teams have yet to learn is that most of their stakeholders won’t care about their product specs or every detail of their founding story. Great key messaging is a story that positions the company’s unique qualities as they meet the needs of the target audience, told in the language that the target audience speaks. Otherwise, companies risk not being heard.

Clear, strategic brand messaging is an essential tool that any great marketing and communications plan relies on. It ensures that each piece of content reads like it belongs to the same brand — and that the brand has a message and voice that resonates with the target audience, making each communication outward more impactful. Plus, having a well-defined set of phrases, ideas, and value statements makes new content development easy for internal teams.

Instead of describing what you are: 

• We are a leading solar provider for businesses
• We carry 12 battery storage products from 10 kWh to 250 kWh
• Our nonprofit was founded in 2012 by former NOAA and WHOI employees

Create messaging your audience cares about:

• Power your business with clean, affordable energy
• No matter the size of your home or facilities, keep the lights on day and night
• Every grant made with your donation directly supports ocean science initiatives vetted by our marine biologists

But establishing strategic brand messaging can be a daunting task. Early-stage startups are filled with enthusiasm for their product, but often lack the market experience to tailor their voice to a particular audience. More mature companies may have the experience needed to understand their audience, but find the prospect of brand change slow and difficult in their larger organization. In either case, brands miss out on cutting through the noise and making a meaningful impression.

After all, when brands all look and sound the same as the competition, there’s no point in brand definition at all. 

At DG+, we’ve worked with dozens of clean energy and climate brands to define their unique marketing voice. Our process is collaborative and pulls from classic marketing methods as well as new approaches from the cutting edge of the climate tech world. To embark on a messaging development journey, we recommend shaping your story with an open mind using the following approach. 

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How to define your brand’s key messaging 

Step 1: Have the right conversations

The first step to unlock precise, compelling messaging is asking the right people the right questions. Stage intentional interviews that uncover the core of your company’s value with the people who know it best. Speak with employees, founders, partners, clients, investors or donors, to get their impression of what the company offers. And we’re not just talking about what they sell — ask about what makes the organization unique amongst similar companies and find out why they were attracted to it in the first place. 

Some of the best key messaging questions are just a little out of the ordinary, making the interviewee really think about their response beyond a canned elevator pitch. Here are some of our favorite questions to try: 

• Describe what your organization does as if explaining it to a curious five-year-old. 
• Now describe it as if you were speaking to a curious college professor. 
• What problem is your organization solving? Why are your products or services important?
• For non-founding employees: Do you remember your first impression of the company? How did you find the job listing and what made you apply? Did anything stick out to you about the brand’s materials during the hiring process? 
• If your organization won an award, what song would you choose to play as you walked up with your team to accept it? (For DG+, I would choose Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen. You’re welcome for the earworm.)
• For clients, partners, outside affiliates: Do you think the organization is accurately portraying their value? 
• Where should the organization or brand be present where it is not right now? 

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Step 2: Understand the audience

Once you start to understand what it is that makes your organization unique, it’s time to dig into who you are communicating with. Developing key messaging is not only about the offering, but also the presentation. You’ll need to develop a voice, tone, and language that resonates with the people you are targeting so that they are primed to hear you. 

You can use a marketing persona model to define who you are speaking to to start. From there, put yourself in their shoes and learn how they talk about themselves. What are their trade publications or favorite influencers talking about, and how are they saying it? See their social media posts for an idea of the conversations that they are having and how they speak to topics your brand addresses. Identify the communication techniques your target audience is using, including vocabulary, tone of voice, topics of interest, and channels to deploy these ideas and incorporate them into your brand. After all, if you can position your brand to speak their language, you’ll make your brand accessible and interesting to the right people. 

Conducting a competitor analysis is another great way to see who else has been speaking to them. What messaging are competitors using? Does it appear effective at gaining them followers, clicks, event attendees, and the like? Where are there gaps in the competitors’ messaging that you have the opportunity to fill? This is another great opportunity to avoid falling into the brand sameness trap as you concoct your brand and marketing plans, too. 

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Step 3: Get outside input

At this point, you have collected information about what to say, how to say it, and how to differentiate your message from the rest. Now, it’s time to get outside input to double check your inferences. 

This is where partners, industry experts, and marketing agencies come in to evaluate your drafted work and provide the final adjustments that take it from good to great. 

Incentivized surveys of target audience members are another great opportunity to gather valuable input on key messaging. Present your messaging statements to a group of respondents alongside some clarifying questions, like the following examples: 

• What is your impression of this brand? 
• How serious or casual does this brand appear to be? 
• Does this brand seem like experts in what they’re talking about?
• Would you be interested in what this brand has to offer? 
• What do you think the person who wrote this message is like? What do they seem to care about? 
• Choose three adjectives to describe the brand based on what you read. 
• How much trust would you have in an organization that shares this message with you? 
• Is this argument convincing? 
• Would you be interested in learning what a brand using this language is offering? 
• Does this statement pertain to the work you do? Or is it irrelevant? 

The key at this stage is to get an unbiased look at how your messaging will read to those outside of your company. This step is often uncomfortable, but it’s important to sit with that discomfort and let the feedback guide your final messaging refinements. 

Ask yourself: How big is the gap between the answers we received and the brand personality we are trying to portray? Did it resonate with my target audience? Use your answers to adapt your draft messaging to fill that gap.  

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Step 4: Make a bold choice forward

You’re ready to finalize the brand messaging using the information you’ve collected from all of the parties that interact with your organization. Now, it’s time to make a bold choice that incorporates the gathered information while being sure your message stands out.

Your messages should always speak directly to a need or problem of your target audience or persona. Select one key message that can be expressed in a short phrase to build the rest around. For example, a regional solar EPC might start with “We help New England companies power buildings affordably with solar,” then build further messaging points to expand on their team’s reliability and availability. 

Of course, these messages can sound like empty promises without sharing proof. Note proofpoint examples that prove your statements are true alongside each one. If you claim reliability, note your warranty guarantees. If you claim you’re the easy-to-work-with company, note your customer service ratings. If you claim affordability, explain how your clients have saved a percentage of costs compared to the legacy solution. 

Sameness is expensive. Be ready to feel uncomfortable with taking a bold approach, but trust since you’ve taken the right steps, you’ll have a stellar new voice that will compel your target audience. 

Remember that even in a serious, B2B setting, your target audience is always human and they want to be spoken to as such. Craft something that cuts through the AI slop, leaves an impression, and shares an offering that will provide true value to your audience. Being undeniably human is always a great brand strategy, regardless of industry. 

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Key messaging for clean energy

Clean energy and climate tech companies come to DG+ to establish their brands, both through visual and written language. If you’re looking for the right partner that understands every step of the process, reach out to us today.

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