Want to grow your business faster and build customer trust? Start by defining your brand purpose. A clear brand purpose helps you stand out, connect emotionally with customers, and drive long-term success. Here’s a quick summary of the 5 steps to define your brand purpose:
- Identify Your Business Values and Vision: Reflect on why you started your business and define the core values that guide your decisions.
- Research Your Target Audience’s Needs: Understand your audience’s problems, goals, and values through interviews, feedback, and market trends.
- Write a Clear Purpose Statement: Craft a simple, memorable statement using the "Why, How, What" framework to express your brand’s mission.
- Apply Purpose to Daily Operations: Ensure your purpose guides all teams, messaging, and customer interactions consistently.
- Track and Improve Your Purpose: Measure impact using KPIs like brand loyalty and customer feedback, and adapt as needed.
Why it matters: 82% of consumers buy with purpose in mind, and purpose-driven companies grow 3x faster than competitors. Ready to put your purpose into action? Let’s dive deeper!
How to Find Your Brand’s “Why” – A Simple Framework That Works
Step 1: Identify Your Business Values and Vision
Creating a clear and meaningful brand purpose starts with understanding the heart of your business. This stems from two key areas: the personal inspiration that led you to start your journey and the values that shape your decisions every day.
Define Why You Started Your Business
Every business begins with a spark – a moment when you saw a problem to solve, a gap to fill, or a way to make a difference. Pinpointing this "why" gives your brand purpose an emotional foundation and helps you connect with motivations that go beyond just making money.
Think about it: What principles influence the choices you make for your business? What kind of impact do you want to have on your industry or community? What problems are you solving for your customers? [6]
Simon Sinek’s well-known quote captures this perfectly:
"People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe." [8]
And the data supports this idea: 77% of consumers feel more emotionally connected to companies driven by purpose, and 66% are willing to switch brands to support these businesses [8].
Take a moment to reflect on how it all started. What pushed you to take that leap? Was it frustration with existing solutions? A desire to serve a group that wasn’t being heard? Or maybe a vision for how things could improve? These reflections are the foundation of your brand purpose.
Think about what your business stands for – and what it stands against. Maybe you launched your company to counter impersonal service hurting small businesses. Or perhaps you built an app to make resources more accessible to everyone. These deeper motivations are what will resonate most with your audience.
Once you’ve clarified these insights, it’s time to turn them into actionable core values that define your company culture.
List Your Core Company Values
Building on your personal motivations, the next step is to identify the shared values that guide your team. These core values aren’t just a list of nice words – they’re the guiding principles that shape your company culture and decision-making. And to make them meaningful, they need to be developed collaboratively.
Start by gathering input from employees across all levels and departments. This approach ensures your values reflect the collective spirit of your organization, rather than being imposed by leadership alone [7]. Ask your team questions like, “What makes working here meaningful?” or “What would our company never do?” [2]
Once you’ve gathered input, group similar responses into 5–7 themes. Each theme should reflect a key concept or value that represents your business. These clusters will form the basis of your core values.
For example, when Personio – a company with over 500 employees – revisited its core values in 2020, they took a company-wide approach. With guidance from Culture by Design, they ensured employee feedback played a central role in the process, rather than relying solely on executive assumptions [5].
Your core values should meet several important criteria. They need to resonate with your employees, be modeled by leadership, be easy to understand, align with employees’ daily work, connect with customers, and be clearly visible in the actions of your team [4].
"Values reduce uncertainty when making decisions and thus ensure that employees can concentrate better on their tasks." – Andrea Strohmayr, Culture & Change Specialist, Culture by Design [5]
This highlights why values are more than just words – they’re tools that create consistency and clarity across your organization.
To make these values part of your company’s DNA, integrate them into every aspect of your operations. From hiring and onboarding to performance reviews and everyday workflows, your values should guide how your business operates [3]. For instance, Anaplan brought their values to life by displaying them on office walls, adding them to employee badges, highlighting them in meetings, and even creating a Slack channel for sharing examples of employees embodying those values [2].
Step 2: Research Your Target Audience’s Needs
After defining your business values and vision, the next step is figuring out what truly matters to your customers. Your brand’s purpose will only connect if it addresses the real challenges, goals, and values of the people you serve. This means going deeper than basic demographics to uncover the motivations that guide their decisions.
Why does this matter? Emotionally connected customers deliver a 306% higher lifetime value for your brand [15]. When your purpose aligns with what your audience genuinely cares about, you’re not just running a business – you’re building meaningful relationships that fuel growth. Let’s dive into how to uncover these insights.
Map Your Customers’ Problems and Goals
Understanding your audience starts with identifying what drives them. Their needs typically fall into three categories: functional (practical issues they need solved), social (how they want to be seen), and emotional (how they want to feel) [10]. By clarifying these areas, you can pinpoint what motivates them.
Here’s how to dig into these insights:
- Customer interviews: Speak directly with your customers. Ask questions like, “What problem were you trying to solve when you found us?” or “What made you choose us over other options?” These conversations can also reveal lifestyle habits and behaviors that offer valuable clues [9].
- Social media analysis: Look at your followers’ demographics, locations, and engagement patterns. This data provides a snapshot of who’s already interested in your brand [9].
- Content analytics: Tools like Google Analytics can show you which topics resonate most, what search terms bring people to your site, and where your traffic originates. This helps you understand what your audience is actively searching for [9].
- Customer service feedback: Your support team is a goldmine of information. Ask them about the most common complaints or issues customers face. This firsthand feedback can uncover recurring pain points [11].
As Harry Wray, Customer Success Executive at Zendesk, puts it:
"The experience matters at every moment in the customer journey, and customers will judge any impediment along the way. It’s crucial to consider the experience from the customer’s perspective to understand their needs." [11]
To visualize this, create a customer journey map. This tool outlines how customers interact with your brand – from first discovering you to making a purchase and beyond. It can highlight areas where they might feel frustrated or confused [11].
You can also use the Look, Ask, Try method: observe customer behavior, ask open-ended questions, and go through the customer experience yourself to identify potential roadblocks [10].
For example, Degreed, an education technology platform, uses integrated customer service software to analyze feedback across teams. By identifying issues early, they’ve reduced support volume, improved satisfaction, and even developed new features based on customer needs [11].
Study Market Trends and Changes
Understanding your audience’s current needs is essential, but staying relevant requires anticipating how their expectations and priorities might evolve. Keeping an eye on market trends and shifts in consumer behavior helps ensure your brand purpose remains aligned with what matters most.
Here’s why this matters: Purpose-driven companies grow three times faster than their competitors and achieve higher customer satisfaction [12]. Additionally, 55% of consumers believe businesses have a responsibility to act on issues tied to their purpose [12].
To stay ahead:
- Conduct a PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological). For example, political changes might impact industry regulations, economic shifts could affect your customers’ spending habits, and new technology might create opportunities – or challenges [13].
- Monitor social media and influencers in your industry. Pay attention to trending topics, customer concerns, and emerging solutions [13].
- Perform competitive analysis. Review how other brands are addressing market changes. Look at their messaging, social media content, and customer engagement to see what’s working for them and how their audience compares to yours [9].
Several brands excel at turning market insights into action. Amazon uses customer reviews and ratings to fine-tune their strategies, which builds trust and influences purchasing decisions [14]. Netflix analyzes viewing habits to personalize recommendations and stay relevant to shifting entertainment preferences [14]. Starbucks engages customers through their “My Starbucks Idea” platform, which gathers suggestions directly from users [14]. Similarly, LEGO invites fans to submit design ideas through their LEGO Ideas platform, creating a sense of community and collaboration [14].
Remember, trends come in different timeframes: short-term trends last days, intermediate ones span weeks, and long-term shifts unfold over years [13].
A great example of aligning with market insights is Telesign. By updating their brand messaging based on evolving customer needs, they cut the time it takes for qualified leads to convert into clients by half [15].
Consistency is key. Companies with branding that aligns with audience expectations see up to 20% greater growth and 33% higher revenue compared to those with inconsistent messaging [15]. The secret lies in continuously tracking how your audience’s values and needs are changing – and adapting your approach accordingly.
The goal isn’t to chase every fleeting trend but to focus on the deeper shifts that shape what your customers value. These insights will help ensure your brand purpose remains relevant and impactful over time.
Step 3: Write a Clear Purpose Statement
Now that you’ve defined your values and gained a deeper understanding of your audience, it’s time to bring everything together into a purpose statement. This isn’t just a catchy tagline – it’s the backbone of your business, the guiding principle that shapes every decision you make. A strong purpose statement goes beyond profit, articulating why your business exists and how it connects emotionally with the people you serve.
Your purpose statement should reflect your core values and be memorable enough for every team member to carry it forward [20]. Think of it as the link between what your business stands for internally and the impact you aim to create externally.
Use the ‘Why, How, What’ Framework
Simon Sinek’s ‘Why, How, What’ framework is an excellent tool for crafting a purpose statement. It encourages you to start with your core motivations and build outward, rather than focusing solely on what you sell.
Here’s how the framework breaks down:
- The ‘Why’: This is your core purpose – the reason your organization exists. It’s about the change you want to see in the world, not just making money [16].
- The ‘How’: This captures your unique approach, including your strategies, principles, and the way you deliver value [17].
- The ‘What’: This refers to your products or services – the tangible results of your purpose and approach [17].
To develop your ‘Why,’ try using the "TO ____ SO THAT ____" format [16]. The first blank represents your contribution, and the second reflects the impact of that contribution. For instance, Simon Sinek’s own ‘Why’ statement is: "To inspire people to do the things that inspire them so that, together, we can change our world" [16]. Similarly, Dean Bokhari’s statement reads: "To empower and educate people everywhere so that they can improve their lives and achieve their goals" [16]. Notice how both focus on the impact they aim to create, rather than the methods they use.
When building your framework, ensure that your ‘What,’ ‘How,’ and ‘Why’ align seamlessly. Your products and services (what) should naturally flow from your unique approach (how), which is ultimately driven by your deeper purpose (why) [18]. When all three elements work together, your purpose statement becomes both meaningful and credible.
Keep It Simple and Genuine
A purpose statement should be simple enough for a 12-year-old to understand and memorable enough that your team can recall it effortlessly. Complexity can dilute your message, so aim for clarity and focus [19].
Simplicity doesn’t mean oversimplifying – it’s about cutting through the noise to highlight what truly matters. For example, Google’s mission – “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” – uses plain language to clearly communicate their goals [23].
Here are some tips for crafting a simple and authentic purpose statement:
- Use straightforward, everyday language. Avoid technical jargon that might alienate your audience.
- Make it inclusive. Your statement should resonate with a broad audience, avoiding narrow or exclusive language.
- Be truthful about the value you provide and who benefits from it [21].
"True purpose is lived from the inside out." [18]
Raphael Bemporad, co-founder of BBMG, explains this balance perfectly:
"At BBMG, we believe brand purpose lives at the intersection of a company’s authentic reason for being and the unmet human needs that it can uniquely fulfill in the marketplace and the world." [22]
When your purpose statement strikes this balance, it becomes a powerful tool – not just for connecting with customers, but for guiding internal decisions and setting your brand apart in a meaningful way.
With a clear purpose statement in place, you’re ready to turn that vision into actionable business practices.
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Step 4: Apply Brand Purpose to Your Daily Operations
Defining your brand purpose is just the beginning – it needs to be woven into the fabric of your business. A purpose that exists only as words on paper won’t resonate. The real magic happens when every team member understands how their daily work contributes to the bigger picture.
Consider this: 70% of employees say their sense of purpose is shaped by their work [25]. When people feel their personal values align with their company’s mission, they’re more engaged, loyal, and likely to recommend the organization [25]. But this alignment doesn’t happen by accident. It takes intentional systems and clear guidelines to make your brand purpose a reality across all departments. This is how you turn a strategic mission into everyday actions.
Create Clear and Practical Guidelines for Teams
Each department plays a unique role in representing your brand, so they need tailored instructions to connect their work to your purpose. For example, your sales team interacts with customers differently than your product team, so their guidelines should reflect those differences.
Start by building comprehensive brand guidelines that include essentials like logos, colors, typography, messaging, and tone [26]. But don’t stop there – go further by creating role-specific scenarios that show your purpose in action. For instance, if your mission is to empower small businesses, teach your sales team to focus on empowerment during client conversations, and guide your product team to prioritize features that support this goal.
Take a page from Netflix’s playbook. They provide detailed instructions for using their visual assets, including clear dos and don’ts for logo usage [28]. The key is making these guidelines accessible and actionable. Avoid overwhelming teams with jargon-filled documents that gather dust on a shelf. Instead, centralize these resources and include real-world examples to make them practical [28].
To ensure these guidelines stick, reinforce them through regular training and embed them into everyday workflows. For example, incorporate brand alignment into project reviews, team meetings, and content approvals [27]. When brand purpose becomes part of your routine processes, it stops feeling like an extra task and starts becoming second nature.
Keep Messaging Consistent Across All Channels
Once your teams have clear guidelines, the next step is ensuring a seamless brand experience for your customers. Consistency is more than just using the same logo or colors – it’s about delivering a unified experience that reflects your purpose at every touchpoint. Research shows that 75% of consumers worldwide expect the same experience from a brand, no matter the channel [30]. And here’s the kicker: consistent branding can boost revenue by up to 23% [27].
Amazon is a master of this approach. Whether customers visit the website, contact customer service, or open a package, they encounter the same customer-first philosophy [30]. This consistency reinforces Amazon’s core purpose and builds trust with its audience.
To achieve this, ensure your messaging aligns across both digital and physical platforms. Your website copy should match your in-store signage, your social media tone should reflect your email newsletters, and your customer service interactions should echo your marketing values [24]. Establish approval processes to ensure all communications meet your brand standards before they reach customers [24].
Your tone of voice, key messages, and customer interactions should all reflect your brand purpose. Duolingo is a great example of this. From its playful push notifications to its social media posts and in-app experiences, the brand’s friendly personality shines through consistently [30].
Regularly audit your brand’s presence across all channels to catch any inconsistencies [30]. Review your website, social media profiles, email campaigns, physical materials, and customer service touchpoints. Customer feedback can also reveal gaps you might overlook, so set up systems to gather and analyze this input [30].
Consistency doesn’t mean being rigid, though. Your brand should adapt to different contexts while staying true to its core identity. The goal is to ensure customers recognize and trust your brand wherever they encounter it, building the kind of familiarity that strengthens long-term relationships.
Step 5: Track and Improve Your Brand Purpose
Your brand purpose isn’t something you can define once and leave untouched – it’s a dynamic part of your business that requires consistent attention and fine-tuning. Here’s a striking reality: while 89% of companies rank brand awareness as their top priority, only 48% actively measure branding-related metrics [33]. This gap often leaves businesses guessing whether their purpose is hitting the mark.
Successful brands treat their purpose as a living, breathing component of their strategy. They track specific metrics, gather feedback, and adjust based on data. For example, 93% of high-growth brands have established key performance metrics tied to their purpose, and they’re 66% more likely to use their purpose as a guide for employee decision-making [32]. The key is to start by defining clear metrics.
Track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
To understand the impact of your brand purpose, you need to measure the right things. Focus on metrics like brand engagement, awareness, preference, loyalty, and share of voice [31]. These indicators reveal how well your purpose connects with both customers and employees.
Brand awareness is a solid starting point. Track mentions of your brand, media coverage, search volume, site traffic, and engagement metrics [36]. Don’t overlook indirect mentions – misspellings or references to your products without the brand name can also provide valuable insights.
Customer loyalty is another critical metric. Research shows that 46% of U.S. consumers are willing to pay more for brands they trust [35], and 77% prefer to shop with brands they follow on social media [33]. Keep an eye on repeat purchase rates, customer lifetime value, and net promoter scores to understand how your purpose translates into long-term relationships.
Your employees’ connection to your brand purpose is just as important. Regularly survey your team to see how aligned they feel with your mission. Employees who are purpose-driven tend to make better decisions and create more genuine customer experiences [32]. Metrics like employee satisfaction, retention rates, and internal advocacy can help you track this alignment.
As Professor Sunil Gupta of Harvard Business School points out:
"It isn’t enough to measure the final outcome alone. You also need to track intermediate metrics to understand where consumers might be getting stuck – essentially bottlenecks in the marketing funnel." [34]
By monitoring early indicators, you can identify and address potential issues before they escalate. Tools like Google Analytics, CRM platforms, and social media monitoring can help you gather actionable insights [36], forming the foundation for continuous improvement.
Make Changes Based on Feedback
Once you’ve collected measurable insights, use them to refine your brand purpose and keep it aligned with shifting market expectations. Consider this: 68% of consumers believe they have the power to push corporations to change, and 86% expect CEOs to take a stand on societal issues [32]. This highlights the need to stay in tune with customer expectations and adapt when necessary.
Customer feedback is an invaluable resource for improving your products or services [38]. Go beyond traditional surveys by creating regular feedback channels. As Daniel Sokolovsky, CEO and Co-Founder of WARP, puts it:
"Customer feedback is integral to providing a product that your audience wants to use… All startups should be thinking of their customers as key partners in their journey to innovate." [38]
Consider hosting monthly customer calls with a set of 5–10 targeted questions to gather real-time insights [38]. These direct conversations often reveal details that surveys might miss.
Adapting to changing consumer behaviors is essential. Take Apple, for example. Recognizing a shift in consumer preferences, the company introduced the iPhone – a device that combined a phone, music player, and internet browser. This move not only captured a large share of the smartphone market but also solidified Apple’s position as a leader in technology [37].
Work closely with your product team to ensure customer feedback is integrated quickly [38]. Establish systems that allow insights to flow seamlessly from customer support to product development. Additionally, keep an eye on competitors and industry trends, and use data analytics to guide decisions and deliver personalized experiences [37]. In today’s fast-paced market, the ability to innovate quickly is critical [38]. Building flexibility into your brand purpose framework from the start will help you stay ahead.
The key is striking a balance between staying true to your core values and adapting to new insights. While your fundamental purpose should remain steady, how you express and implement it can evolve over time. This approach can lead to stronger brand loyalty, a competitive edge, and new opportunities in the market [37].
Conclusion: Building Success with a Clear Brand Purpose
Defining your brand purpose isn’t just about marketing – it’s about creating a strategic foundation that drives real business outcomes. The five steps outlined earlier provide a clear path to transform your core values into a meaningful advantage. When executed thoughtfully, your brand purpose becomes the cornerstone of every decision, from hiring and product development to customer interactions.
Here’s the reality: 82% of consumers make purchases with purpose in mind[1]. This isn’t just a fleeting trend; it’s how modern business operates.
It’s not just customers who benefit – your team does too. Purpose-driven companies report 40% higher employee retention rates[1], and 75% of business leaders agree that a purpose-centered strategy attracts and retains top talent[1]. Ricky Navar, President at Peak Performance Partners, puts it perfectly:
"When you keep your purpose and ‘why’ front of mind, it helps naturally attract clients who align with your values and beliefs, while discouraging others who aren’t a right fit."[39]
The financial gains are undeniable. In 2018, Unilever’s 28 "sustainable living" brands accounted for 75% of the company’s growth and grew an average of 69% faster than the rest of its portfolio[12]. Similarly, companies with strong alignment between their brand and culture achieve revenue growth rates 33% higher than competitors[41].
But purpose goes beyond numbers. It shapes how your organization functions. Filomena Di Luise, Programme Director at Oracle, underscores this idea:
"Purpose is the anchor that steadies people, strategies and relationships. When individuals and organizations align around both the hard and soft core of purpose, they unlock trust, resilience and meaning. Aligning purpose drives long-term business success, embracing present challenges while looking forward."[40]
To make this work, your purpose must be more than words on a page. It needs to be woven into every decision, action, and interaction. Employees should embody your brand’s ethos, and customers should feel your values at every touchpoint[29][41]. It’s a continuous process – brands that deliver consistent, aligned experiences across physical and digital platforms grow revenues 5.1 times faster than those that don’t[41].
Saphia Lanier from HubSpot captures the essence of this perfectly:
"A brand without a purpose is a ship without a compass."[1]
Your purpose is your guide. It builds trust, forges emotional connections, and inspires loyalty from both customers and employees. Start embedding it into your business today, and you’ll lay the groundwork for lasting success.
FAQs
How can small businesses identify their core values to shape a strong brand purpose?
To pinpoint your core values and establish a meaningful brand purpose, start by taking a step back and reflecting on your mission and the difference you want to make. Think about questions like: What do we truly stand for? and What kind of impact do we want to have on our customers and community? These reflections can help you uncover the foundation of your brand’s identity.
Collaborating with your team is another powerful way to bring this vision to life. Open discussions can reveal shared beliefs and priorities that might not be immediately obvious. You could also gather insights by surveying employees or analyzing past achievements and challenges to spot patterns that align with your business culture and goals. This process not only sharpens your brand’s purpose but also fosters a sense of unity and shared direction that connects with both your team and your audience.
How can businesses ensure their brand purpose is consistently reflected across all teams and customer interactions?
To make sure your brand purpose shines through in every interaction and across all teams, start by developing clear brand guidelines. These should cover your mission, core values, tone of voice, and visual identity. The goal? To ensure everyone in your organization knows how to represent the brand in a way that feels consistent and intentional.
Foster a sense of brand ownership by tying each department’s objectives to the overarching brand purpose. Regular training sessions, open communication channels, and continuous feedback can strengthen this connection. Also, don’t let brand consistency rest on the shoulders of just one team – make it a shared responsibility across the organization. When everyone contributes, every customer touchpoint naturally reflects your brand’s purpose in an authentic way.
How can businesses track the success and impact of their brand purpose over time?
Businesses can gauge how well their brand purpose resonates by combining both qualitative and quantitative metrics. Key indicators like brand awareness, consumer perception, and engagement levels offer valuable insights. Tools such as surveys, social media activity, and customer feedback can uncover how your audience perceives and connects with your brand’s mission.
You can also look at the results of purpose-driven efforts, such as their impact on the community or boost in customer loyalty, to get a clearer picture. Linking these initiatives to measurable business outcomes – think revenue growth or customer retention rates – ensures your brand purpose stays relevant and effective. By using a structured approach to track these results, you not only build trust but also show your audience the lasting value your brand brings.