Learn how to write a boilerplate that succinctly reflects your company’s purpose and mission
What is a boilerplate? In marketing, a boilerplate serves as the consistent overview of a company and is a key part of a brand’s messaging and overall marketing strategy. Essentially, it acts as an elevator pitch, describing what a company does and why. Typically used on a company’s About Page and in collateral such as press releases, brochures and white papers, a boilerplate is a pretty big deal—and important to get right. Here are our tips on writing a company boilerplate that embodies your brand, plus some examples to help get started.
The Purpose of a Boilerplate
The main purpose of a brand’s boilerplate is to tell people how to talk about the brand. The media, as well as other companies or organizations you partner with, will typically include it when they mention your brand. For that reason, a boilerplate is often the first impression the public, potential clients, partners and job seekers get of your company.
Having an effective boilerplate also benefits the company internally. When creating new materials, team members can use this approved language to gauge voice and tone or even establish talking points for leadership. Additionally, you can reuse a boilerplate across content, including on your website, in marketing collateral and throughout other materials to keep messaging consistent. This helps make a company feel cohesive and familiar to its audience. Writing a boilerplate provides a useful exercise in learning how to talk about the brand, forcing you to think about the bigger picture and pinpoint exactly what needs to be communicated about the company.
How to Write a Company Boilerplate
Before writing a boilerplate, the brand’s mission and target audience need to be established. Only then can you start putting together messaging. A boilerplate should be short and sweet, so try to limit yourself to a single paragraph.
Don’t forget to sell your brand. Think about how you want to be known and use language to reinforce that messaging. For example, Yakkety Yak is proud of and passionate about being a purpose-driven business. We want to work with companies who are making a difference, so we made sure that is front and center in our boilerplate.
Now it’s time to get writing. Start with a strong opening statement that describes who you are. Then, give a high-level overview of what you do and be aspirational when talking about your goals. Think about what appeals most to your target audience with every word you use. Finally, end on how readers can access your services. A company boilerplate should clearly and concisely articulate who you are, what you do, and why a reader should care. It should reflect all the core elements of the business to attract the right people.
An effective boilerplate should include the following:
- Who you are: Describe the identity of your company in one sentence.
- Who you serve: What does your ideal client look like? Who do your products or services benefit and why?
- Why you do it: Every company was founded for a reason. Why was yours?
- What you provide: What does your company offer? Rather than a detailed description of products or services, this should be a high-level overview of what you do.
- How to reach you: Let readers know how they can start using your services or buying your products.
Tip: Make sure to avoid industry jargon that only subject matter experts can understand. A boilerplate should speak to all audiences.
4 Boilerplate Examples for Inspiration
So what are some examples of boilerplates that do it well? Here are four of our favorites. Use them as inspiration to get started on your own.
1. Slack
Slack is the collaboration hub that brings the right people, information, and tools together to get work done. From Fortune 100 companies to corner markets, millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams, unify their systems, and drive their business forward.
Why it works: Short, sweet and to-the-point, this boilerplate really “boils” it down to who Slack is, what they do and their impact without wasting a word.
2. TOMS®
We’ve always been in business to improve lives.
In 2006, TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie pioneered the One for One® model. Since then, our community has had a positive impact on over 100,000,000 lives.
Today, we commit 1/3 of our profits for grassroots good, supporting people building equity at the local level, and driving progress from the ground up.
That’s why our shoes are really something special—especially our classic Alpargata, which we like to think of as the shoe that started it all.
Because it doesn’t really matter where you’re going when you’re in your TOMS.
You can be sure it’s in the right direction.
Why it works: Since being purpose-driven is also at the heart of what TOMS® is all about, their boilerplate actually talks more about their mission than their product while still working shoes into it seamlessly.
3. American Migraine Foundation
The American Migraine Foundation (AMF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of research and awareness surrounding migraine, a disabling condition that impacts more than 39 million men, women and children in the United States. The AMF was founded in 2010 to provide global access to information and resources for individuals with migraine as well as their family and friends.
Why it works: This nonprofit boilerplate does an excellent job of expressing why the American Migraine Foundation exists—while at the same time explaining migraine and how prevalent and debilitating the disease is. This tactic uses the organization’s boilerplate to help advance its mission of raising awareness about migraine.
4. Yakkety Yak
Yakkety Yak fuses strategy and content production to craft high-impact stories for brands and businesses that care about doing good. Our full-service marketing team expertly combines multi-channel digital marketing to ignite empathy and inspire action. Working with purpose-driven brands and businesses in healthcare, nonprofit, professional services and real estate, we execute big ideas through kickass storytelling.
Why it works: This is our boilerplate, so of course we love it! Most importantly, it puts our values first and accurately reflects our services.
Creating a company boilerplate is no easy task, and you may feel intimidated by the thought of distilling everything you are and everything you do into one short paragraph. So let the experts take the wheel. Contact us to work together to craft a boilerplate or other core brand messaging that gets people talking about your company the way you intended.
Updated July 2021
