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.