Your tagline isn’t just a cute little line under your logo.

It actually acts as a mini billboard for your brand’s brain. It tells people what you do, how you do it, and what it feels like to work with you- all in just a few words.

Today I’m pulling back the curtain on one of my favorite parts of the brand strategy process: crafting taglines. When we build out brand strategy for clients, one of the sections in their brand guide is titled “Your Messaging.” It includes brand voice, taglines, header suggestions, brand promise, and other messaging gems that communicate clearly what you’re all about, connect with your audience, and convert curiosity into trust and loyalty.

In this episode, I’m walking you through my favorite tagline formulas that we use inside of our brand strategy process at Bethany Works, along with client examples and big brand examples you’ll definitely recognize.

Whether you’re naming your business, refining your personal brand, trying to communicate more clearly, or you’re a designer considering adding more comprehensive brand strategy to your process- this is for you.

The Basics: What Your Tagline Should Do

Your tagline needs to be just a few words. It’s not a full mission statement. It’s not a bio. It’s definitely not a jargony list of keywords.

In those few words, it should do one or more of the following:

• State what you do
• Hint at how you do it
• Evoke how it feels to work with you

Think of it as verbal design- a few powerful words working together with your business name, visuals, and voice to reinforce your overall brand essence.

One Rule of Thumb Before We Dive In

If your business name doesn’t clearly say what you do, then your tagline should focus more on the what and the how, especially as you build brand equity.

As your brand evolves and becomes more known and understood, you can revisit a descriptive tagline. But at the beginning, if your business name isn’t clearly stating what you do, your tagline is going to skew towards descriptive.

If your business name does say what you do, then you have a little more creative freedom in the tagline creation process.

And if you’re naming your business right now, neither approach is better than the other- they serve different purposes. I actually usually prefer a more flexible brand name so you’re not boxed in as you evolve, scale, or shift your offers over time. Plus, descriptive brand names tend not to be as unique because they’re using terms we all understand instead of a created brand name.

Formula 1: The Three by Three

The formula: External solution + Internal objection = End result or feeling

I really love this one because it uses rhythm and psychology. Think transformation plus payoff in a three-part cadence. Psychologically, we love things that come in threes or odd numbers, so this can be really helpful.

Client examples:

Wealth Peace: Your plan, your priorities, your peace.

• The first one (your plan) is the external solution- she’s a financial planner
• The second (your priorities) hits a pain point that many financial planners use a templatized process and don’t individualize the experience
• The third (your peace) ties back to the business name and repeats the end result or feeling

Force Art Therapy: Create, uncover, and heal.

• What are we doing? Creating in an art therapy space
• Art therapy is in the name, so it’s clear what we’re doing
• Uncover what’s going on, then heal (the end result)

Big brand example: The Marines: The few, the proud, the Marines.

Formula 2: The Two by Two (The Give and the Get)

The formula: What you offer + How it helps

This is also known as the “give and the get.” It’s contemporary, simple, and great if your brand needs clarity and confidence to be center stage. If your brand has a “get to it” feel, this is a really good formula to use.

Client examples:

AirBrindy: Design Forward, Hospitality Focused.

• She works specifically in the short-term rental space
• Her approach is being design forward in everything with hospitality focused
• She’s used this across all her sub-brands because it’s truly her brand philosophy

Ruby Pebble Financial Planning: Enable living life on your own terms.

• “On your own terms” was super important because they work with people considering early retirement, sabbaticals, or who chose not to have children
• They’re living life on their own terms, literally

Big brand examples:

• Walmart: Save money, live better
• Target: Expect more, pay less
• Dollar Shave Club: Shave time, shave money

(Note: Dollar Shave Club is a punny tagline, which I normally don’t recommend because they rarely work. But they came out with a super solid irreverent brand approach immediately, so it actually worked for them.)

Formula 3: When the Name Isn’t Obvious

The formula: Use verbs and storytelling phrases to describe your offer

If your name doesn’t say what you do, your tagline should. This is especially important for brands with more abstract or feeling-based names.

Client example:

Adventure Amore: Crafting and capturing your legendary elopement.

• The name points to the feeling, but we may not know exactly what they do
• They’re elopement photographers
• The tagline can also work as just “capturing your legendary elopement” to shorten it
• We kept “crafting” because it’s a huge part of the work they do

Big brand comparison (the opposite approach): KFC: Finger lickin’ good

• We all know what KFC is (Kentucky Fried Chicken)
• So the tagline describes the experience or feeling instead

Formula 4: Name-Based Personal Brands

The formula: Descriptive tagline that does the heavy lifting

When your name is the brand, your tagline has a whole other lift it needs to do. A label can also be super helpful with a name-based personal brand.

Client example:

Melissa Goldsmith, PhD: Specialized care for trauma and anxiety recovery.

• Her name is the brand
• The tagline has to carry that weight and make it super clear what she does

With personal brands, you also get to play with the label or identifier, like:

• The Pet Medium
• The PTSD Psychologist
• The Witch on Wall Street (hypothetical example)

Big brand example: Rothy’s: Reduce your carbon footprint in style.

• I love the idea of bringing in “footprints” to tie to the product (shoes)
• It’s really specific about the product’s differentiator (sustainability)
• It’s very descriptive- no fluff, straight to the differentiator and product type

Formula 5: The Who Plus the What

The formula: Who you serve + What you do

This is the classic formula. It’s perfect for traditional or regulated industries like finance, medicine, or law.

Client examples:

Donchez Law: Generations of justice in personal injury law.

• We needed to say “personal injury law” in the tagline
• We also wanted to tie in that this is a father-daughter duo (her mom also works there)
• We didn’t want to say “family” because family + law sounds like family law
• “Generations” sounds established and tells their story

Methods by Katie Breard: Movement through every motherhood milestone.

• The “who” refers to her clientele (mostly moms)
• The “what” is movement separated by pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause stages
• We wanted to make clear that methods are separated based on where you’re at in your stage of life

Big brand example: Dunkin’: America runs on Dunkin’

• Who: America
• What: Running on Dunkin’
• We get it (and we don’t even need to say “donuts” anymore)

Formula 6: Statement Style

The formula: A rally cry that speaks to your audience’s beliefs or desired identity

This tagline is like a rally. Sometimes it can act as a call to action, but mostly it speaks directly to your audience’s beliefs or desired identity. It’s usually an echo of your brand philosophy.

This works really beautifully when your name is intriguing, recognizable, or when you hear your name and you just want a smidge more.

Client examples:

Bethany Works: Unearth your brand.

• “Unearth” brings in my explorer archetype
• My palette is earthy and nature-inspired, focused on growth and rebirth
• It’s telling you exactly what we’re going to do together
• This is actually trademarked (®)

Hitched AF: Weddings should be fun.

• It speaks to her brand philosophy
• If you look at her colorful branding, it all comes together
• The name is super intriguing, and the tagline adds that extra punctuation

Big brand examples:

American Express: Don’t live life without it.

• In their design, “life” is in script font to emphasize the “live life” part
• This is a fun way to have visuals mesh with messaging

Toyota: Let’s go places.

• Goes straight to the brand philosophy

MasterCard: Priceless.

• Iconic
• Leans fully into emotional value and storytelling without needing to explain the product
• Fun fact: MasterCard’s original tagline was much longer: “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.” As the brand built credibility, they simplified to just “Priceless”

Formula 7: The What Plus What’s Special About It

The formula: The product + Its unique value or emotional reward

This is especially strong for product-based brands. It highlights the product and its unique value or emotional reward.

Client examples:

BDB Society (Being Doing Becoming Society): Athleisure that moves how you do.

• We don’t know what the product is just from the name
• It’s a lifestyle brand, so we wanted to bring in the lifestyle component

Fed by Alex: Meals to nurture and nourish.

• She has an incredible Meals for Mamas program for postpartum women
• Everything is very nurturing and nourishing
• It’s about balance, not just “super healthy”

Back of the Spoon: Food worth gathering for.

• All her campaigns are about gathering around the table and connecting people
• Her whole brand is based on her grandmother’s story
• This connects to that beautifully

How to Work Through Your Own Tagline

If you’re working on your own tagline, take a look at my Instagram post, the table above, and ask yourself:

• What do I do?
• Who do I serve?
• How does it feel to work with me?
• How does it feel to use my product?
• What’s the end solution of my product?
• What’s special or different about us?
• What are our differentiators in the market?
• What do I want to be remembered for?

Then keep it short and sharp, and make sure it sticks using a formula.

The Bigger Picture

This is one tiny component of the full brand strategy and messaging. But it’s an important one.

Your tagline works together with your business name, visuals, and voice to reinforce your overall brand essence. When done well, it becomes part of how people remember you and understand what you’re all about.

If you need help with all of that, you know where to find me. And if you’re a designer considering adding more comprehensive brand strategy to your process, I’ll be sharing my brand strategy framework in the future.

For now, I hope this breakdown of the seven tagline formulas we love to use gives you a solid starting point for crafting your own.

If this helped you think differently about taglines or gave you ideas for your own brand messaging, share it with another business owner who’s working on clarifying their brand!