Guy MurrelThe challenge with traditional positioning and messaging approaches for tech companies is simple: it’s often too inward and self-centered. It’s like looking in a mirror, creating an image and then trying to convince an audience that what they are looking at is “special.”

Winning companies, those that are leading markets and not just claiming to be a leader, are defining current market trends, shedding light on the future of the industry and asserting their role in advancing the adoption and maturity of the market segment. They often define new categories, processes and frameworks. And, they share them freely. Instead of creating a traditional mission statement that sounds similar to every other company in their space, they’re creating a strategic narrative.

PR teams and professionals, both internal and external, are positioned to lead the development of strategic narrative messaging. Done right, it establishes a company as a market driver, and provides the purpose an organization rallies around to drive ideas forward, attract customers, inspire employees and define a focused “cause” that is clear and easy to understand. It also gives PR and marketing teams compelling themes to engage influencers, create meaningful content and resonate with a wide range of audiences in a manner that is less about “our solutions,” and instead about understanding and solving their industry challenges.

Here are some guiding tenets for crafting a strategic narrative within the context of the high-tech industry:

Add context to mega-trends. Technology is disruptive by nature, and in many cases, a mash-up of industry dynamics that are driving or creating new market spaces. The strategic narrative provides an opportunity for companies — from startups to Fortune 500 — to provide insight and context into the trends that affect your company, customers and the industry at-large. Providing a viewpoint and opinion on what’s happening outside of your own company is a great start to get an organization to think big.

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Define and honor the category. Along with mega-trends, make it a priority to champion the overall good of your category or market space. How can your company play an active role in advancing the adoption and shaping the evolution of the category? Take the opportunity to step outside of your company to define the category as you see it. Is there a process or framework you can develop and “give” to the industry as a means of showing leadership? Better yet, many companies find themselves disrupting traditional industries. This provides an opportunity to define a new category. Or, as often is the case, to modify an existing category. A good example is our client, CodeFutures. The company provides a streaming, iterative approach to Big Data processing. Because it aligns with Agile software development methods, the company is now championing “Agile Big Data.” These are two already understood market categories that we have helped them blend into a single approach. People grasp and understand it quickly. And, there’s no “convincing.” It instantly elevates messaging at the industry level, and provides countless themes and thought leadership opportunities for the company.

Shape a Better World. Most companies have a vision statement. However, many that we see are much too focused on their capabilities, as opposed to what their clients care about. Having defined the industry and the trends shaping it, and gone into depth on category advancement and contribution, the strategic narrative is ready for the company’s future vision for the overall industry served. Where would you like to see your industry in five or 10 years? What contributions can your industry — not just your company — make?

Define your role. Now that the industry and category work is compete, move toward defining your company’s goals, course of action and the overall role you will play in the world you’ve defined. What is the company vision for innovation? How will it benefit customers that are grappling with the disruptive mega-trends you’ve defined?

Be industry inclusive. Don’t fall into the trap of defining a strategic narrative that “only applies to us.” If you’re defining or have a goal to re-shape an industry — welcome visitors, including competitors. It’s actually a great achievement to have the competitors follow suit in how you’re shaping industry perceptions and driving change. Another client of ours created a sub-category within the security industry. After a year of promoting and championing the “10 Tenets” of the category, the new segment was included as a speaking track at a major industry conference. A huge win for a small company!

Include everyone. The strategic narrative needs to touch each and every employee, partner, customer and influencer in the market. With vision, a clearly defined industry role and company strategy, the strategic narrative provides a guidepost for the company. Functionally, it also can unify various departments, including customer service and support, and human resources, and provide technologists with aspirational, high-level goals for product development.

Creating a singular, clear and compelling story for an organization is a challenge. By approaching positioning and messages at a higher level, many tech companies find a renewed sense of purpose and realize a multitude of benefits both inside and outside the company. Also, creating a strategic narrative should include input from a range of stakeholders — the more buy-in up front, the better. We recommend, and often facilitate, a workshop-style strategy session where stakeholders can open up, share ideas and vision, and help shape the strategic direction of the company.

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Guy Murrel is Co-Founder and Principal in charge of strategic messaging at Catapult PR-IR.