Tag, you’re it!

You might be asking, ‘do I need a tagline?’ Well, that depends…

Does your company name say what you do? For example, if your business is called Pete’s Plumbing, it’s pretty clear what you do.

What about your logo? Does it say what you do? If you’re in residential real estate and your logo has a house in it, your logo is fairly representative of what you do, so you might not need a tagline.

On the other hand, if the name of your company doesn’t say what you do and your logo doesn’t say what you do, you probably need a tagline. Or, if you want to differentiate your company from the competition, a tagline is an excellent way to clearly do that.

Writing your tagline

A good tagline says what you do, or differentiates your business with just a few words. Selecting those few words is of course the challenge.

Start with your core message. What do you do? What services or products do you provide? Break that down to a single word. Hopefully you’ll find several that apply.

Next determine your secondary message. Your secondary message is most likely your differentiation. Break that down to a single word.

Now, marry those two words together. You may need to add a conjunction or verb to bring it together. Make a list of all the combinations and select the best.

Finally, check to see if your tagline is being used by someone else. You can google the phrase for a quick search. Also be sure to check whether or not it’s been trademarked by another company. Visit http://www.uspto.gov/ to search.