When it comes to starting a company, a very ‘old school’ part of the branding process to create a Mission and Vision Statement. I cannot tell you how many old companies I’ve worked with that took these statements as law and have them up on a mounted poster in their offices.
We all know though that no one outside the company REALLY cares what your vision statement is, but still people want it on their websites and other marketing materials.
Why I think your blog or company needs a vision statement is a bit different than telling your potential audience what you stand for and displaying it on all your marketing materials.
To me, a vision statement is a way for you to describe to yourself and any employees what your business does. This is important if you’re just starting out and want to make sure you keep in line with why you’re doing it.
Lets say you’re starting an online business/blog focused on kettle bells. Your goal (aside from creating a revenue stream) is to educate individuals about why they should be using kettle bells for their workouts. This may include showing the proper techniques, new exercises, health benefits and which kettle bells are best.
You don’t need a Vision Statement to start the company (despite what bankers still tell you when you apply for a business line of credit), but it can be very beneficial to you to keep anything you post on track.
So back to our Kettle Bell website. If we wanted to make sure we and any writers we may hire keep with the idea and voice we want to portray with this site, we can create a Vision Statement that sums up what the site is about.
An example of a ‘vision statement’ for this site could be:
“To show everyday people how to use kettle bells to better their health at home.”
or:
“The personal trainer’s resource for everything to do with kettle bells.”
or simply:
“A website that provides in-depth kettle bell exercises, techniques, health info and new kettle bell products.”
These statements don’t need to exist anywhere beyond your own records to make sure that you keep the voice and idea behind a website constant.
You don’t even need to make it a comprehensible sentence. It could be a point form list or run-on sentence that just tells everything you want the business/website to stand for.
Once you have a statement about your business/blog that makes sense and easily reminds you of what you’re writing about, keep it somewhere that you can keep looking back to, especially when you’re thinking about a new blog topic. I’ve found that sometimes I may stray with a topic idea, but when I remember what exactly I want to accomplish with a blog, it becomes clearer.