Mission statement
Also called company mission, mission
What is a mission statement?
A mission statement is a short description of what an organization does, who it does it for and why it matters. It explains the company's purpose in the present tense and guides everyday decisions about products, hiring and marketing. Most mission statements are one or two sentences and appear on the About page and in internal documents.
A mission statement is often paired with a vision statement. The mission describes what the company does now. The vision describes the future it is working toward. Values describe how it behaves along the way.
Many mission statements fail because they are vague ("to deliver excellence to stakeholders"). The useful ones are concrete enough to rule some things out.
Why a mission statement matters
A clear mission keeps a small team focused and helps it say no to off-brand ideas. It also gives content a backbone: posts that show the mission in action are often the most authentic a brand can publish.
Customers increasingly want to know why a business exists, and a specific mission supports the brand story.
How to write a mission statement
- State what you do in plain words.
- Name who you do it for.
- Say why it matters or what changes for them.
- Cut jargon and anything that could apply to any business.
- Keep it to one or two sentences and check the team agrees with it.
Mission statement example
A beginner yoga studio: "We help people who feel out of place in fitness spaces build a calm, regular yoga practice, with small classes and patient teachers."
Mission statement FAQ
What is the difference between a mission statement and a vision statement?
A mission statement describes what the company does now and for whom. A vision statement describes the future it wants to create.
How long should a mission statement be?
One or two sentences. If it needs a paragraph, it is probably trying to cover too much.
Related terms
A brand story is the narrative of why a business exists, the problem it solves and the people behind it, told to connect with customers.
A positioning statement is a short internal sentence naming a brand's target customer, category, key benefit and reason to believe.
A tagline is a short, lasting phrase that sits with a brand's name or logo and sums up what it stands for or promises.
Brand identity is everything a business controls about how it presents itself: name, logo, colors, fonts, voice, values and messaging.
Brand messaging is the set of core messages a brand repeats: what it offers, for whom, why it is different and what proof backs it up.