Write to get read ... an example

Background
The purpose of this memo is to summarize the recent focus groups with consumers and IT professionals regarding Product X.

Recommendation
The positioning worked well for the technical decision makers but was way over the heads of the average consumer. For this reason, we recommend launching the product with “see through” plastics in support of the positioning of Product X1 as “a lot of storage for a little money” when it comes to consumers. For IT professionals, we recommend the design of separate and distinct plastics to support the positioning of Product X2 as part of our “high performance line” of hard drive replacements and upgrades.

Rationale

• The average consumer doesn’t have a clear sense of what seek time means
  High seek time may be better, they?re not really sure. Even when we annotate the charts to say that lower scores are actually better, consumers remain confused. Some more technical consumers were engaged by the charts and graphs comparing our performance to the competition. However, on balance most consumers felt that we were telling them “too much” “too early” in their decision process.
• IT professionals liked the positioning and expressed interest in the product
  IT felt that the product could solve a problem that no other product in the category yet solved. Price was an issue for both consumers and IT. When we exposed consumers to the feature set …

Next Steps
We need your decision on the recommended plastics/ positioning/branding strategy by no later than August 1 to stay on schedule for the planned January launch.