Positioning statements have a place in high-tech companies, but direct marketing isn't it.

Direct marketing has one goal: getting someone to respond. Grand, sweeping visions of how your technology will change life as we know it may be a great way of promoting your management's current thinking on the state of the business world, but they do little to generate response.

That's not to say that direct marketing is somehow separate from the rest of your media mix and can function with its own set of messages; far from it. It's just that communicating your positioning statement shouldn't be the dominant theme of your direct marketing campaign.

The reasons that people respond to a campaign are more immediate - usually because they perceive that the product being sold or the information being offered can help them either solve a problem, or satisfy a need. Positioning statements are typically on a grander scale, which doesn't make them useless, it just means they're ineffective for getting someone to take action.

By all means, use branding, positioning and other high-level marketing messages to frame your direct marketing campaign. In your copy, however, focus on the day-to-day "pain" that your audience is feeling and how you and your technology are going to help them solve it.

Don't talk about transforming the way someone does business - instead, discuss (for example) how your technology can eliminate the day-to-day processes that prevent the reader from focusing on more strategic issues. Likewise, avoid discussion of how your product delivers a "competitive advantage" - instead, address specifically how the technology helps the customer locate new prospects, slash operating costs, reduce the selling cycle, etc.

The best direct marketing copy - the type that resonates most with your target audience - addresses a problem or need that your reader experiences every day. Remember, if that person responds, you'll have plenty of opportunity to evangelize your technology "vision" later in the selling process.