A mission statement is a critical component of every business plan and marketing strategy and should announce to the world why your company exists. While these statements are often short just consisting of a few sentences, they can define the company for days ahead. Mission statements create brand identity, attract talent, guide culture, and build community.
What is a mission statement?
A mission statement is a summary of a company or organization’s values and purpose. For example, Google’s mission statement is to “organize the world’s information and make it easily and universally accessible.”
Where does a mission statement go?
You can choose to include your mission statement in various places. Here are the places you will most often find them. Mission statements are often included within a business plan is the executive summary section.
You can also include your mission statement on your website on your about page so those visiting your company’s website can see it when they want to learn more about your company.
If your company or organization has dedicated social media platforms, you can include them in there, such as your LinkedIn bio, Instagram bio, Facebook page description, etc.
How to create a mission statement?
Now that we’ve covered the definition and where a mission statement is often located, let’s dive into the fun part — creating one.
In order to begin writing your mission statement, you need to know some preliminary information such as the product/service your company offers, your type of corporation, your target audience, and your product positioning strategy (what makes you unique or different).
Once you know these, these will be the 3 main components of your mission statement:
- Making it clear what your company/organization offers
- Identifying the target audience your company/organization is after
- Focusing on what makes your company/organization unique or different
Here’s an example using Imaginated, a digital community for artists and creators.
Their mission statement is, “Inspiring digital-age artists and creators in business, artistry, and mind through high-quality educational content.”
Let’s dissect this mission statement using the 3 components.
- They make it clear that the company/organization offers educational content
- Their target audience is “digital-age artists and creators”
- What they claim makes them unique or different is that they offer “high-quality” educational content.
Going back to Google’s mission statement, “organizing the world’s information and making it easily and universally accessible” — let’s dissect this:
- They make it clear that they organize information
- Their target audience is the world
- What they claim makes them unique or different is that they make it “easily and universally accessible.”
Why does every business need a mission statement?
Now that we’ve explored how to create a mission statement, let’s dive into why businesses need one. A mission statement is important because it will help narrow the company/organization’s focus and define what it stands for.
This is important both for the company as well as its users/visitors. You can include your mission statement on your content marketing campaigns, from your explainer videos to blog posts.
For the company
Every action or strategic move the company makes should be aligned with the mission statement. They should always be thinking, “if we introduce this new product or service, does it align with the mission statement?”
For the users/visitors
The mission statement will allow the users/visitors or target audience of the company to understand right away what the company stands for. If your mission statement is simple and covers all these points, then your target audience can even easily pass along your mission statement to other users through word of mouth.
If you or your company does not know the mission or goal of your efforts, how do you expect your target audience to know — it’s as simple as that.
Examples of mission statements
We have already listed some example mission statements, but here are some more from various industries and niches.
Take note of the 3 components:
- They make it clear that the company/organization offers educational content
- Their target audience is “digital-age artists and creators”
- What they claim makes them unique or different is that they offer “high-quality” educational content.
Sports
Nike’s mission statement: “Our mission is what drives us to do everything possible to expand human potential. We do that by creating groundbreaking sport innovations, by making our products more sustainably, by building a creative and diverse global team, and by making a positive impact in communities where we live and work.”
Consumer Goods
Amazon’s mission statement: “We aim to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. Our mission is to continually raise the bar of the customer experience by using the internet and technology to help consumers find, discover, and buy anything, and empower businesses and content creators to maximize their success.”
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Zapier’s mission: “We’re a 100% distributed team helping people across the world automate the boring and tedious parts of their job. We do that by helping everyone connect the web applications they already use and love.”
Summing up
Mission statements are an important piece for any organization looking to succeed. While mission statements are just a few sentences, it should not simply be a description of a company, but rather an expression of the company’s desires, purpose, and direction. Take your time when crafting a mission statement but also remember to not overcomplicate things.
