What should your tag line do for you? Your tag line is, perhaps, the most powerful element in your total business marketing program. It is the key that unlocks the search engine in your business card. It can be incorporated into your letterhead and your notepads and in some cases it can even be included with your business name on your company cheques.

Your tag line? It is like the heart of your business marketing program and it just keeps pumping and pumping and pumping to keep the body of your business in fine working order. It should appear on your business card and on your website and it should follow you wherever you go.

If your business card is designed to be a communication device that carries your name and contact information only, consider adding a title for yourself.  Your title will begin to take on the persona of being your tag.  And when you have a title/tag, you are helping your audience create an association between you and what you do.

Your title/tag will help people remember you. If you are a stay-at-home parent, you may choose a title like Fundraiser Extraordinaire or Family Fashion Consultant or Resident Executive Officer of the Household or Hockey Mom/Dad. A retired person with a sense of humour might enjoy a tag like “Experienced Volunteer: 1000 hours and still banking” or “Expert Football Armchair Critic.” Another choice for a tag line might be to state the membership affiliation to which you belong. Are you a member of your local community association?  Perhaps you are a student in search of work. Would it help you to create a business card with your contact information and two tag lines? For example, “Third Year University Student, Fine Arts Faculty: Art Gallery Curator In Training” printed on two lines of text. 

I believe that when you share the resources you have to offer via the tag line on your business card, you send an invitation to employ your skills. I believe that when you offer the potential resources you might contribute to a relationship, you ignite synergy. It is this synergy that promotes the kind of two-way support that delivers continued potential and growth. It can create referrals and it can foster suggestions for leads.

Think of your tag line as your headline…the title of your story, if you will. It is the key part of your elevator speech…that thirty second answer you give when people ask you what you do and you have thirty seconds to answer the question before the elevator doors let you out.

Your tag line is what gives your business and your business card life. The humour, the energy, the joy…you add when you deliver your tag line…whether it is to an audience of one or an audience of twenty can’t help but add memorable qualities to your advertisement. Add it to your business card and now you have the benefit of powerful bits of language all married together through your name, your business name and your tag working masterfully for you.

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Donna Dahl, author, speaker, trainer, and independent entrepreneur offers basic business marketing consulting services. This articles is excerpted and adapted from her published article, “Tag Lines: Communicating What Sets Your Business Apart.” Visit her show at www.theWINonline.com/shows/tenacious-marketer.  Contact her through her website at www.makoye.com