Month: August 2010

Creating a marketing message

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

This is my second post on market readiness.  My first one dealt with knowing your strategic landscape and using this piece of analysis to drive both strategic and tactical decision making. 

Now that you know where you are…and where you want to go, it's time to develop compelling and meaningful marketing messaging and positioning.  This can be (and has been) a frustrating exercise to go through as you really are getting down to the words that you use to describe you, your market, and your offering with the goal of an agreed upon and relevant reference document that will drive external and internal communications.  

Do you offer the most or best of something?
Are you first or are you the only one? Who is it for and what benefit
do they receive?  Don't tell people how, tell them why.

I have previously written about why positioning matters here and believe it is a combination of creative writing, strategic thinking, and market research…so don't forget to get outside the four walls and test your message on anyone and everyone. 

Ultimately with your marketing messaging you are seeking two fundamental things:

  • Definition – what you do, what makes it compelling, and the benefit(s) you provide
  • Contrast – how you are unlike alternatives keeping in mind this can be competitors, existing approaches, or the dreaded 'do nothing.'

Here's a checklist of items to create:

  1. A positioning statement (here is a framework)
  2. A short message (50-100 words)
  3. A long message (250-500 words)
  4. A description of the problem you are solving
  5. How you differentiate from alternatives (see contrast above)
  6. Brand attributes – the words you want to use to describe your company
  7. Words to avoid – words you don't want used to describe your company
  8. A 25 word (or shorter) description based on all of the above – yes, this is hard

Start with those building blocks and the definition/contrast approach to provide some structure around this effort with the goal of preparing a positioning guide that you will revisit at regular intervals – more frequently if you are in a fast moving market. 

Once you have this nailed down into a positioning guide, share it with everyone in your company and use it to form the basis of web site content, collateral, outreach, or any other place you need to use compelling content to describe your company and what you do.

Looking for help on messaging or positioning?  Email me and I'd be happy to brainstorm with you.

Easy roasted red pepper sauce

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

I spent some time tinkering in the kitchen last night and made one of my favorite sauces to go along with a nice grilled rib eye steak.  I am a huge fan of roasted red bell peppers and this sauce will go nicely with just about anything – alongside a steak, on pasta, or with fish. 

Here's how I made it and apologies for the lack of precise measurement (I don't cook that way):

  • Roast three red bell peppers under the broiler; pour a bit of olive oil on each and rotate until the skin is charred on all sides
  • Place roasted red bell peppers in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap (you are doing this to make it easier to remove the skin)
  • In a sauce pan, pour in some stock (vegetable or chicken) and add minced garlic, chopped fresh basil, a bit of hot chili oil, and a pinch of red pepper flakes along with salt and both black and white pepper.
  • Bring this to a boil and add a squeeze of dijon mustard, a light squeeze of tomato paste, and some capers (you can also use anchovy paste as either adds depth of flavor)
  • Remove the charred skin from red peppers by running water into the bowl while peeling the skin away
  • Add the now peeled peppers to the sauce pan
  • Add some milk (or cream if you want to make it really rich)
  • Pour all of this into a food processor and blend away (be careful about blending hot liquid or you'll paint your kitchen red)
  • Return to the sauce pan and reduce a bit (you can even strain it if you want it really smooth)
  • Serve and enjoy

This makes plenty and it only gets better as it sits so put what you don't use into the fridge to use again (like I am going to do tonight along with grilled halibut).

Video of two F-18s flying over my house

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

This weekend marks the annual visit by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels to Seattle.  As part of the festivities around Seafair, there is an airshow and boat races on Lake Washington. 

This is footage of two F-18s flying over my house as part of the Boeing airshow (not the Blue Angels).  I missed recording them on their way in but managed to grab my Flip video camera on their way out.  

I love a good flyover…