How to Write a Brand Mission Statement

Your mission statement is a key way to represent your business to new customers and shape your brand reputation with your target audience. Along with a vision statement and your core values, your mission statement helps your customers, employees, and partners understand what your business does and why. 

When writing your mission statement, focus on your brand’s audience, the value you bring to that audience, and how you’ll accomplish that goal.

What is a brand mission statement?

A brand mission statement encompasses your brand’s purpose and objectives. It’s the foundation of your brand’s reputation. It’s a few short sentences that communicate what you want to do for your target audience and why.

A strong mission statement will be rooted in action. It should reflect not only your brand’s core products or services but also the unique ways you deliver them. 

Usually, an effective mission statement also references your target audience to highlight who will benefit from engaging with your brand. For example, you might target people aged 30+ who are new parents. 

A thoughtful, unique mission statement is an important part of setting up a business or brand. It helps to differentiate you from competitors and builds connection with your audience.

Mission statements vs. vision statements

While they’re closely connected, a mission statement and a vision statement serve different purposes for your brand. The mission statement covers what value you’ll deliver for your customers and how. Your vision statement, on the other hand, focuses on the broader positive impact of your brand long term.

For example, your mission might be helping new parents juggle their priorities by simplifying access to local childcare. But your vision might be to bring a sense of community care back to childrearing, so families can live fulfilling lives without sacrificing quality time or career ambitions.

You can use these statements internally for yourself and any stakeholders, and externally across your brand touchpoints. They might appear on the landing page of your website or in your marketing campaigns, for example.

Strong mission and vision statements influence your brand reputation and business goals. When people think of you, it will be in line with your mission and vision. In decision-making, you can refer to your mission, vision, or values to guide choices around the projects you take on and who you work with.

Get tips for writing your vision statement

Brand mission vs. other brand elements

Many different pieces make up a brand on top of your mission and vision statements. What we call a brand is essentially how you present your business or self to the public. It encompasses how you talk to people, visual design, and more, and each piece differs from your mission statement.

• Brand voice: Brand voice is all about how you speak to your audience. While you want to keep it human, it’s helpful to have descriptors in mind, like warm or encouraging. 

• Brand design: Your brand visuals are how you show up from a design perspective—your colors, fonts, and images. Your brand design and voice should be complementary. So if you have a warm brand voice, your visuals should feel the same.

• Brand identity: Think of your brand identity like a personality. Your brand identity is the sum of how you present your brand.

• Brand touchpoints: Your brand touchpoints are where you interact with your audience and build relationships with them. Your website is a touchpoint, but email, social media profiles, and other places you can build connection also fall in this category.

Learn how to establish a compelling brand message and voice

How to write a brand mission statement

To craft your mission statement, start with some initial research. Then do some free writing to get the basic outline of your mission down on paper.

1. Start with brainstorming. Look at an existing brand’s mission statement and note what works well or doesn’t land with you. 

2. Identify your target audience. Narrow in on your ideal customer, client, or supporter. If they were a person you know, what would they be like and care about? 

3. Name the core problem of your target audience. In broad terms, name the problem you want to solve.

4. Detail how you’ll solve the problem. Get into the specifics of what you’re providing to your target customer or user.

5. Condense into 1-3 sentences. Take your answers to the questions above and summarize them into a few sentences.

Once you’re done with the above, you’ll ideally have a mission statement that looks something like: “At [brand name], we’re dedicated to making [problem] better with [your product and how it solves the problem].” Add it to your website on the About Us page or homepage.

The length of your mission statement depends on how expansive you need to be to differentiate yourself. If it takes one sentence to do that, great. If not, don’t be afraid to break the statement up to make it easy on the reader. 

Feeling stuck? Use Squarespace AI to start a mission statement draft.

Mission statement examples

Consider Squarespace as an example for your mission statement. Our mission statement is: “We believe design is the ultimate competitive advantage. We build products that help entrepreneurs stand out and succeed.”

The brand’s purpose is to help people stand out and succeed. Which people? “Entrepreneurs,” which includes creators, small business owners, and anyone with a cool idea. How will Squarespace help its audience be more successful? With design, “the ultimate competitive advantage.”

Other good mission statement examples might be:

• We help freelance creatives manage the administrative tasks of running a business with 20 years of small business expertise.

• We’re on a mission to create a supportive mental healthcare environment for women by providing free resources and individual therapy.

Each of these mission statements could translate into action items in a business plan. For example, the first person might offer tax or legal services to freelance creatives. The second person could start a social media account for sharing mental health tips and offer sliding-scale therapy sessions.

Brand mission best practices

There are three core goals to focus on when crafting a mission statement.

1. Identify the audience you’re speaking to so you can address them and their priorities.

2. Inspire your audience with the value your brand will bring to their lives.

3. Show how you’re going to add value in a way that sets you apart from peers and connects with your audience.

When creating or updating your mission statement, keep a few best practices in mind.

• Keep it brief. A lengthy mission statement is hard to remember, so do your best to make yours concise.

• Make it unique. There may be other brands with a similar mission to yours. Make sure yours sounds different and highlights what sets you apart.

• Remember your audience. Take a step back or ask a friend to take a look at your statement. Is it easy to understand and speak to your audience and value?

• Revisit and update it. As your brand changes and grows, it’s natural for your mission to change too. Update yours as needed so it always aligns with where you’re focused.

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This post was updated on April 11, 2024.