What is Core

Messaging?

The official definition of Core Messaging

Core messaging is the simplest articulation of the fundamental principles that connect how you do what you do with what your audience truly cares about.

This definition is the result of many hours of consideration by the five founders of Core Messaging: Brian Miller, Tamsen Webster, Sheperd Simmons, Francisco Mahfuz, and Michel Neray.

Explore core messaging in these articles:

What is Core

Messaging?

Hover or click to learn how each piece fits into an overall communication strategy.

Advertising The paid promotion of your products or services aimed at generating interest and driving sales.
Sales The direct interaction with potential customers to persuade them to purchase, focusing on individual transactions rather than the overarching narrative.
Marketing A broader strategy to understand and meet customer needs, creatively expressing the core messaging, to build brand awareness and loyalty.
External Messaging The communication from a business to the outside world, including marketing and advertising, but broader, encompassing all outward-facing messages.
Positioning How your brand is perceived in the context of the market and competitors, a strategic framing of the core message.
Branding The creation of a unique identity and image for your business in the consumer's mind, built on the core message, reflecting personality and values.
Core Messaging (do this first!) The simplest expression of your business or idea’s essence, connecting your unique value with your audience's deepest needs.

Do this first!

How core messaging works as the foundation of your business strategy

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Core Messaging

Establishing your core messaging first is crucial as it serves as the foundation for all subsequent communication strategies. It ensures that every message across various channels and platforms is aligned with your central value proposition and resonates with your target audience.

Branding

Once the core messaging is defined, developing your branding is a natural next step. Branding involves creating a visual and emotional identity that reflects your core messaging. This identity will be consistent across all materials and campaigns, helping to build recognition and trust with your audience.

Positioning

With a solid brand identity based on your core messaging, positioning allows you to differentiate yourself in the market. It's about strategically placing your brand in the minds of your target customers relative to your competitors, based on your unique strengths and the benefits you offer.

External Messaging

This encompasses how you communicate your brand, its values, and its offerings to the outside world. It's broader than core messaging, encompassing all outward-facing communications. At this stage, you're ready to articulate your positioning and branding into coherent messages for various audiences.

Marketing

Marketing strategies and campaigns are built upon the foundation of your core messaging, branding, and positioning. This step involves creating detailed plans and initiatives to promote your brand and offerings to your target audience, using your external messaging as a guide.

Sales

Sales strategies and processes translate the brand promise into individual customer interactions. By this stage, your sales team should be equipped with a deep understanding of your core messaging, brand, and market positioning, enabling them to effectively communicate the value of your offerings to potential customers.

Advertising

As the final step, advertising involves the paid promotion of your products or services. It's a tactical move that benefits from all the preceding steps, using established core messaging, brand identity, positioning, and marketing strategies to design effective ads that resonate with your target audience and compel them to act.

Frequently asked questions about Core Messaging

  • Core messaging is the disciplined pursuit of a core message.

  • A core message is a statement that connects your fundamental principles with what your audience truly cares about. It is clear and concise.

  • You do... if you’re responsible for driving action on a product, service, or idea.

  • Marketing tends to look at messaging only from the customer’s perspective. A core message starts with you — your identity, beliefs, unique value — and uncovers a deeper connection.

  • Words. Words that will inform anything you’re developing. An elevator pitch. A digital marketing campaign. An appeal for investors. A TED Talk. Etc.

  • Practitioners use various methods. As long as you arrive at a core message, you can choose various ways to get there.

  • It’s certainly possible. But the view from the inside usually isn’t objective. Your core message is something you’re so close to, you probably don’t even see it.

  • The founder of Core Messaging can, including Brian and his team at Clarity Up LLC.

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  • Technically, sure. But like all AI-generated content, it will look and feel superficial and is unlikely to truly reflect you or your organization’s deepest intentions and desires.

  • Core messaging comes before branding. It’s the foundation of your identity. It ensures that all branding and marketing align with your principles and resonate with your audience.

  • Core messaging comes before storytelling. It defines the ideals that your stories should represent. It helps you choose examples and anecdotes that best resonate with audiences.

  • Core messaging comes before a positioning statement or value proposition. It identifies your deep, differentiating value, which can then be externally expressed.

  • Core messaging comes before company strategy. It establishes a clear understanding of your deep-seated principles, which can then be expressed through vision, mission, and standards.