Why Your Business Needs a Brand Purpose and How to Create One

Your brand says a lot about you.

As a result, you need to build it in a way that makes a difference, makes you stand out, and makes buyers want to be your loyal customers.

Customers today are looking for more than just a product or service. They are looking for a brand they can relate to, a brand that makes an impact on something they care about.

For this, you’ll need a meaningful brand purpose for your business.

Your brand purpose is the lens through which you see and develop all aspects of your business going forward, including the creation of your digital marketing strategy, operations, and beyond.

It’s a foundation upon which to build your brand, meet customers’ needs, and make a difference in your own unique way.

Do you want to know more about this topic? Keep reading!

What Exactly is a Brand Purpose?

Your brand purpose is the driving force behind everything you do. It impacts how you are viewed by customers, employees, and the marketplace.

Simply put, an authentic brand purpose is your reason to exist beyond the ability to make money.

It’s your why and your North Star. It’s how you see a way to fulfill an unmet need in society and serve your key demographic.

Your brand purpose relates to your service or product and speaks to your employees, customers, stakeholders, communities, and more.

For yours to be successful, however, you’ll need to avoid trying to be all things to all people.

Instead of generalizing your purpose, you need to drill down to the finest details as to what you are all about, why you are offering such a product or service, and what you are gearing up to accomplish.

Sure, it’s not going to resonate with all consumers out there, but it will create a higher relevance to your key demographics.

Your brand purpose can help guide everything you do, keeping your business messaging consistent and, in turn, recognizable by customers and potential customers alike.

Why is Brand Purpose Important?

Your brand purpose is important to your business for a number of reasons.

Connects with Buyers on a More Personal Level

A brand purpose connects with buyers on a more personal, emotional level and helps them feel as if they are part of something bigger than themselves.

At this level, you are addressing your buyer personas’ questions, concerns, pain points, and needs.

With a meaningful brand purpose, you are also re-establishing your relationship with your customers and forming a tighter bond.

Increases Brand Loyalty

A meaningful brand purpose captures the attention of customers and keeps them focused on you. In other words, it increases brand loyalty.

Such brand loyalty leads to referrals, social media shares, and brand advocates.

Additionally, with the brand purpose serving as an essential part of your long-term marketing strategy, it can help guide your content marketing to focus on retaining customers and building upon that brand loyalty.

Attracts and Retains the Best Employees

Once you divulge your brand purpose, you’ll attract a dedicated team of employees looking for that same sense of meaning and those with similar beliefs and values.

Feeling fulfilled at work can lead to more creativity, productivity, and overall job satisfaction, which means that you will be in a good position to retain your best employees.

Increases Conversion Rates, Growing Your Sales

You’re attracting new customers who believe in your purpose and retain them, so it’s no wonder your bottom line is positively increasingly.

Businesses with an authentic brand purpose experience much higher gains in market share, growing up to three times faster than competitors.

With this increase, you not only keep your business going, but you can also continue supporting your purpose.

Separates You from the Competition

Your brand purpose also differentiates you from your competition, an essential action that can bring in higher returns and returning customers.

Your brand purpose, then, is an integral part of your competitive advantage.

Guides Your Business Decisions

A meaningful brand purpose can guide all your business decisions.

When each department understands your brand’s purpose, important decisions keep that purpose in mind. Consistency occurs across the board.

Without one, you can muddy your brand messaging, leaving potential customers confused and looking elsewhere.

What Are the 3 Main Purposes of Branding?

When you’re brainstorming or revamping a brand purpose, it’s important to keep the three main purposes of branding in mind. They are as follows.

1. Creating a Distinct Identity

In a crowded, competitive market where everything’s been done before, it’s crucial to set yourself apart.

It’s also important to humanize your brand.

Branding gives your business a unique, one-of-a-kind identity, just like a person would have. This helps your customers better connect to what you do and what you are all about.

2. Influencing Consumer Associations

While no company can (or should) seek to control every nuance of how its customers feel, it’s more than possible to influence the concepts and emotions they associate with a brand.

Consumers don’t love the brands they love just for making great products and offering them at fair prices. They love them for the way they make them feel. Branding helps them make that connection between a company and the feelings its products encourage.

3. Strengthening Customer Loyalty

Consumer loyalty is what keeps people coming back to a brand even when there are newer, cheaper, or genuinely novel options available. Branding helps foster this type of loyalty over time by helping people see it as trustworthy, authentic, and reliable.

What is the Difference Between Brand Purpose, Brand Vision, Mission, and Values?

Your brand purpose, as mentioned above, is the reason why your business exists beyond the potential profits you can bring in. Related to this are the brand vision, mission, and values.

There are distinct differences between these, but essentially, they are created to build upon each other.

Vision

Your brand vision represents where you plan to go and what future you’re striving to help create. Ask yourself, where is your company heading?

More and more, customers are looking to do business with companies that encompass visions to impact their life and also the lives of others.

Mission

Your mission broadly identifies how you will create your envisioned future.

How will you get there? What will you do to reach it?

Values

Your values clearly reveal what you stand for and what you believe in. These values will provide guidance for how your business will act along the way.

While all three of these are important, it’s the brand purpose that is the guiding light for your brand. It will guide and inform your vision, mission, and values.

How Do You Write a Brand Purpose?

Defining your brand purpose is only part of what’s necessary to create a genuinely purpose-driven brand of your own. It’s also essential to develop a powerful brand purpose statement capable of strengthening your brand and highlighting what you’re all about.

Focus on intent

While it’s true that pretty much all businesses exist primarily to turn a profit, modern consumers are also well aware that profit often comes at the expense of people and communities.

That means modern businesses should strike a balance between making money and doing good via options like brand activism, and a good brand purpose statement will reflect that.

Ask the right questions

A good brand purpose statement always outlines the essence of what a brand is all about and seeks to accomplish, and the best way to find that essence is to ask yourself the right questions about your company.

Here are some great examples.

• What prompted you to start your business?
• What feelings are you looking to inspire in your customers?
• How do you want your brand to impact people’s everyday lives?
• What changes would both you and your customers like to see in the world or society today?
• How is your company changing the game and making waves in your industry?

The Best Tips to Write Your Brand Purpose

If you’re feeling lost about how to create your brand purpose, there is a list of questions you can think about.

Gather answers to each one, then drill down until you find a concise phrase that truly represents what your brand is about.

Your ultimate goal is to know your brand and be clear about why it exists. Consider the following tips for writing your brand purpose:

1. Define your WHY

Why am I investing in this particular business, product, or service?

Identifying your WHY first will provide valuable insight into what will ultimately drive your brand.

2. Identify your WHAT

What does your business do? What services or products do you provide?

Also, identify what you do best, what you are most passionate about, and the type of difference you want to make.

3. Show HOW you are different

Think about how you are different from your competitors. 

How do you do what you do? How do you accomplish solutions differently and in a way that stands out?

To help you further define your why, what, and how, here are some questions to focus on:

• Why did you start this particular business, other than the desire to make money?
• How do you differ from other options or competitors? What are your special strengths? (e.g., experiences, abilities, values, processes, or proprietary offerings)
• What is it you want your business to be known for?
• What particular problems are you attempting to solve?
• What is the change you want to make in the world?
• In what ways can you uniquely help alleviate such a problem and make that change in the world?
• What are the specific things you’re looking to change in your industry?
• What are your customers saying, and what changes are they seeking?

To write your brand purpose, analyze your answers to these revealing questions, looking for similar themes, word choices, and any discernable patterns.

Drill down, and continue to narrow your results until you have a clear idea statement that resonates with your brand.

Share it with various others within your organization for feedback. Test it in the marketplace. Then, modify as you see fit so that it can make the maximum impact.

Successful Brand Purpose Examples

To help get your creative mojo going, here are a few brand purpose examples already succeeding in today’s marketplace.

We want to demonstrate that a business can scale, be profitable, and do good in the world – without charging a premium for it.

Warby Parker

Warby Parker’s mission is to offer high-quality eyewear at affordable prices while also being a leader for socially conscious businesses. The brand works with a handful of partners worldwide to ensure that for every pair of glasses sold, a pair is distributed to someone in need. So far, more than eight million pairs of glasses have been distributed through their Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program.

Patagonia limits ecological impacts is with goods that last for generations or can be recycled so the materials in them remain in use. Making the best product matters for saving the planet.

Patagonia

Patagonia’s mission is to work steadily to change their business practices and share what they’ve learned along the way. They have also pledged 1% of their sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment.

At Crayola, our purpose is to help parents and educators raise creatively-alive kids.

Crayola

Crayola’s goal is to help teachers and parents support children’s creativity, making them partners in this learning process instead of just purchasers of the product.

Inspire, educate and outfit a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship

REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.)

REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) stands behind the premise that “a life outdoors is a life well-lived.” They focus on getting people outdoors more and also getting them more active.

Dove is committed to helping all women realize their personal beauty potential by creating products that deliver real care.

Dove

Dove excels at connecting with buyers with its brand purpose for positive body image.

Key Examples of Top Purpose-Driven Brands

The best way to grasp the concept of brand purpose is to take a closer look at it in action. These are just a few examples of today’s most iconic purpose-driven brands.

Dove

Dove is considered the original adopter of purpose-driven marketing, making it worth mentioning twice. Once upon a time, Dove was just another brand that promised to make its customers beautiful.

Today, their revolutionary advocacy for women empowerment, body positivity, and diversity has placed the brand ahead of their competitors and a great example for many marketing teams.

Apple

When you think of Apple, you instinctively think of so much more than cutting-edge tech that makes life easier and more fun. You instinctively think of time-honored concepts like reliability, consistency, and precision, as well.

In fact, Apple’s mastered brand purpose so well that an entire brand community has arisen around its products.

Ben & Jerry’s

Like many modern companies, Ben & Jerry’s recognizes its responsibility to help make the world a better place for everyone, including marginalized communities and the many species that call our planet home.

They do this by partnering with key organizations that tackle issues important to the brand, including climate justice, LGBTQ issues, and racial equality.

Wrap Up: Ready to Write Your Meaningful Brand Purpose?

When it comes to writing a meaningful brand purpose, look at what you offer, examine what the world needs, and identify what it is your customers want and care about.

Then, once you have it, build a strategy around it, and expect to see increasing brand loyalty, a team who cares about your purpose and stays long-term, increasing sales, and having an identifiable impact on the world.

Find out more ways to develop your brand strategy and reach customers with our free brand bundle kit.