What Is Brand Messaging? A Guide for SaaS Marketers

In competitive markets, product features quickly become table stakes. What differentiates lasting brands is not just their offering, but their ability to articulate a sharp, consistent message - one that signals who they are, what they stand for, and why it matters. That’s the role of brand messaging: to translate strategy into language that sticks.

Brand messaging forms the strategic foundation behind every email, ad, landing page, product prompt, and sales call. It is what tells your audience who you are, what you stand for, and why they should care about your product.

In this guide, we'll take a look at the meaning of brand messaging, how it differs from voice and positioning, and how you can build a framework that aligns your entire team to your brand.

What is brand messaging?

Brand messaging refers to the core set of ideas and language your company uses to communicate its value to the world.

When you think of messaging, you probably think of a slogan; but brand messaging plays much broader role than that. It’s the message behind your emails, sales pitch, onboarding steps, basically, anything your customer sees where your brand is talking to them.

For SaaS and non-SaaS teams alike, brand messaging is a great way to:

• Align your product promise with the real customer experience
• Create consistency across marketing, sales, and support
• Build memory and trust over time

Brand messaging vs brand voice vs positioning

Before you build a messaging framework, it’s crucial to understand its core components. Terms like brand messaging, brand voice, and positioning are often used interchangeably, however they each play a distinct role. When teams blur the lines between these elements, it leads to fragmented campaigns, inconsistent copy, and a brand that lacks coherence. Getting these building blocks right sets the foundation for a messaging framework that’s clear, aligned, and scalable.

Here’s what each of these definitions means:

• Positioning is your place in the market. Who you serve, what problem you solve, and how you’re different.
• Brand voice is how you sound to your customers, this includes your tone, personality, and style.
• Brand messaging is what you say. This is the consistent language you use to communicate your positioning and voice.

For example:

• Positioning: "We’re the easiest finance tool for startups."
• Voice: Friendly, smart, a little cheeky.
• Messaging: "Spend less time in spreadsheets. More time building."

When all these elements are aligned, your brand becomes stronger, easier to remember, and tougher for others to copy.

What makes a strong brand messaging?

Here are the key elements that form the foundation of strong brand messaging:

1. Core value proposition

This is your one-line answer to "What do you do, and why should your customers care?". Your value proposition should clearly explain your product’s benefit, who it’s for, and what they can expect to achieve.

For example, Mailmodo’s value proposition is “Helps marketers increase conversions with interactive emails that users love to engage with."

2. Messaging pillars

These are 3–5 central themes that anchor your messaging across campaigns. Each pillar should reflect the core benefit your product delivers, such as simplicity, productivity, trust, or innovation. They provide structure to your content and act as guideposts for what matters most.

3. Elevator pitch

The elevator pitch is a short paragraph that expands on your value proposition in a way that’s easy to say out loud or drop into an intro email. It should capture what you do, who it’s for, and why you’re different, in under 30 seconds.

4. Voice and tone guidelines

Your brand voice is the personality behind your words. Start by choosing a few traits that describe how you want to sound, such as clear, supportive, or no fluff. Then, set simple guidelines for different channels. You might be bit more casual on social media, more calm and detailed in documentation, and straight to the point in emails.

5. Proof points

Claims without evidence fall flat. Therefore, you need to support your messaging with data, testimonials, case studies, or media mentions. This gives customers a reason to believe what you're saying. When your team has this foundation, your copy becomes more consistent, your campaigns run smoother, and your users trust what you say.

How to build a brand messaging strategy

Here’s a step-by-step process on how to create your brand message:

1. Start with customer insights

The best messaging uses the customer’s own words. To find the right language, start by:

• Talking to your customers through interviews, surveys, or casual conversations.
• Reading reviews to spot repeated themes or standout phrases.
• Scanning support tickets to understand common issues and how people describe them.

Pay attention to the problems they mention often and the words they use to explain them. These are the raw materials for building messaging that feels familiar, honest, and relevant.

2. Study your market

Study how competitors present their value. Notice which themes are repeated and where they fall short. Avoid cliché words like “modern,” “scalable,” or “intuitive.” Focus on discovering the unique space your brand can own.

3. Identify your ‘one big idea’

What core belief or change does your product stand for? That idea becomes the foundation for all your messaging. For example, it can be something like “Email should be interactive” or “Design should be collaborative.”

4. Define pillars and tone together

Collaborate with your team to define 3–5 core messaging pillars and establish clear tone-of-voice guidelines. Once you’ve outlined the initial direction, bring in stakeholders from product, sales, and support to pressure-test and refine it. Their frontline insights ensure your messaging resonates with real customer needs and remains consistent across every touchpoint, from pitch decks to support chats.

5. Test and test again

Try out your messaging in a few places such as a landing page, onboarding email, or paid ad. Then track how it performs:

• Look for higher click-through rates to see if your message is catching attention.
• Monitor bounce rates to understand if visitors are staying longer and finding the content relevant.
• Listen for your phrasing being repeated in sales calls, user interviews, or support conversations.

6. Document and distribute

Create one central place where your team can access all your brand messaging. You can use tools like Notion, Confluence, or any platform your team already uses.

Make sure it includes your value proposition, messaging pillars, tone of voice guidelines, and key proof points. Then link to it in creative briefs, onboarding materials, and campaign decks so it’s easy to find and apply.

Where brand messaging shows up

Here’s where your messaging needs to show up:

• Website: From hero headers to product pages, your product value should be front and center.
• Product UI: Microcopy, empty states, tooltips, these are subtle ways to reinforce who you are.
• Emails: Onboarding, lifecycle, win-backs, every email should reflect your tone and value.
• Sales decks and demos: Make sure sales is telling the same story marketing is. No disconnect.
• Social media and ads: Maintain a consistent language so users can recognize your brand across platforms.
• Knowledge base: Make sure you help center articlesfeel on-brand and user-friendly.

When messaging is aligned across these touchpoints, your brand feels more trustworthy, more credible, and more memorable.

How to measure and improve brand messaging

Messaging might seem intangible, but it’s definitely possible to track its impact. By tracking a mix of data and real-world feedback, you can understand whether your message is working or falling short. Here’s what to watch:

Performance metrics

• Increases in email open and click-through rates
• Growth in branded search traffic
• Higher demo bookings or sign-up conversions

Customer and team feedback

• Are customers using your language in feedback or interviews?
• Are internal teams consistently sharing the same message?
• Is your brand being described in a similar way across media or community discussions?

If your performance starts to slip or your product is targeting new groups, make sure to re-review your messaging. Keep things simple and on point, then give it another test. Your messaging will generally change as your product and business develop.

Brand messaging toolkit for your team

Messaging only works when it’s embedded into daily workflows, not just stored in a deck or doc. To make it actionable, equip your teams with templates, examples, and usage guidelines they can rely on when writing copy, designing assets, or speaking to customers. When messaging becomes a tool, not just a reference, consistency follows.

Here’s what you should ideally include in your brand messaging toolkit:

• ICP-to-messaging template: This is a practical tool that helps you map each persona to specific pain points, common objections, and the value propositions that resonate most. It ensures your messaging is targeted, relevant, and aligned with what each audience segment actually cares about. You can use it to brief sales, inform landing pages, and sharpen your GTM playbooks.
• Voice & tone cheatsheet: Outline how your brand should sound across different channels for example, humorous in social media, and on-point in emails.
• One-liner worksheet: Test and refine your core message until it’s sharp and easy for everyone to repeat.
• Audit checklist: Review your site, product, and emails to check for message consistency.
• Collaborative docs: Use shared workspaces in tools like Notion, FigJam, or Google Docs to co-create messaging with your team. These living documents help you brainstorm ideas, collect cross-functional feedback, and iterate in one place, so your messaging stays current, aligned, and accessible to everyone.

Takeaways

Brand messaging forms the very infrastructure of a product. When it’s strong, it aligns your team, clarifies your value, and creates a brand people remember. When it’s weak, everything downstream suffers. To build your brand, you don’t need flashy language; instead, clear, confident communication that helps your audience immediately understand what you do and why you matter.

Start with what your users are already telling you. Build a messaging system around it. And revisit it regularly as you grow.