The Rasor SHARP Method

The Rasor SHARP Method:
An Overview

The Rasor SHARP Method is Rasor’s proprietary method for identifying the critical elements of a company’s marketing communications function. It was developed by Mimi Rasor and is now implemented for many clients by the expert team at her full-service marketing communications agency in Cincinnati, Ohio.
 
Following the SHARP Method, the team at Rasor dives deep and looks at everything a brand or organization does to market itself, assessing effectiveness and recommending a path forward to achieve objectives.
 
The SHARP Method is used across dozens of brands and industries, including healthcare, hospitality, transit and more.

Is yours next?

The Five Components of This Method Are:

01

Strategic Marketing Analysis.

A thorough review of your organization, your marketing strategy and the solution you offer to your target audience’s problem. The SHARP Method answers the questions, “Why this? Why now? Why you?”

02

Human Connection.

Who does your product serve and what are their characteristics? Armed with research around your target market, we use the SHARP Method to create personas to illustrate their typical characteristics and identify influencers for different market segments.

03

Appeal.

Next, the SHARP Method connects your solution to your target audiences with a differentiating message track that will grow awareness and interest.

04

Reach.

Now we bring all our intel together in a marketing strategy designed to reach your market, with the right message and design across appropriate channels.

05

Performance.

Finally, we use the SHARP Method to identify the right metrics to gather across your paid, earned and owned channels to help you make decisions about your marketing mix without drowning in data.

Why the Rasor SHARP Method?

Are you looking for a proven way to build trust, a strategic process that connects your brand to the right audiences or a proven marketing messaging framework? That’s exactly what the Rasor SHARP Method was designed to deliver.

  • Developed and refined by Rasor over more than 20 years and proven across dozens of clients in healthcare, corporate, nonprofit and public sectors, the process is grounded in real-world results, not theory.
  • AI can scale your marketing. It cannot create your message. The SHARP Method builds the authentic, research-backed messaging foundation that gives AI tools something worth amplifying and gives your audiences a reason to trust what they’re hearing.
  • Stakeholder interviews reveal how your own team, customers and partners truly perceive your brand, often uncovering blind spots and hidden strengths.
  • Trust is as important as price and quality in 88% of purchase decisions, according to the Edelman Trust index. The SHARP Method helps organizations re-establish genuine human connection at a time when automation threatens to strip it away.
  • The method’s message track, which includes an overarching message and three supporting pillars with reasons to believe, gives your entire team a single, clear voice When based on your message track, no interaction with your audiences feels off-brand or inconsistent, even when customized.


The SHARP Method is rooted in human behavior science, drawing on what people actually need to move from awareness to interest, trial and, ultimately, adoption and loyalty.

Loyalty

Loyalty is generally defined as a consistently positive emotional experience connected to a product or service that encourages repeat purchases, regardless of price or convenience.
 
Healthcare organizations, medical device companies and B2B brands face a specific challenge: complex offerings, multiple audiences and high stakes for getting the message wrong. The Rasor SHARP Method was built for exactly this kind of challenge. It’s a structured, research-driven process for developing clear messaging and marketing strategy in industries where trust is everything.

Real World Results

Here are just a few examples of how the SHARP Method has delivered impactful results across industries including healthcare, medical device manufacturing, transit and public works.

The SHARP Method helped a medical device company develop messaging so precisely on point that the company put it on their boardroom wall and has used it consistently ever since, with the company tracking toward $1 billion in sales by 2030.
After a multi-channel campaign for Gamma Knife (a non-invasive device to treat brain tumors), consumer preference for our client’s oncology services improved 9% from the previous year and the launch exceeded its proforma, successfully treating 125 patients in less than a year.
In the first month of a county transit’s geotargeted social media campaign, ridership increased by 39% from the previous five-month average.
After implementing messaging and strategy, cardiologists’ awareness of a previous medical device client jumped from 29% to 55%.
Website sessions for a medical audiology clinic increased by 68% and Facebook reach increased by 150% with a repositioning of their entire brand, message and digital presence to reflect their true strengths and customer value.
During the Brent Spence Bridge emergency repair, Rasor’s management of daily video and photo updates achieved nearly 8,000 shares and retweets, more than 480,000 video views and nearly 3.6 million impressions.

The SHARP Method – Community Engagement

Our clients in the public sector count on us to create breakthrough communications to inform and engage the public to provide input on public projects. We don’t “market” projects. We distill complex information, share it with public audiences and request feedback. Because we understand both the marketing and communication disciplines, we’ve developed expertise as an effective outreach partner.

We brand projects with consistency and prepare message tracks that inform, educate and engage stakeholders and the traveling public.
Over the last decade and a half, we have supported nearly 100 public projects, gaining insights and feedback from thousands of people, which have helped shape millions of dollars in transportation investments in their own communities.

SHARP Focus or SHARP Precision: Which Level is Right for Your Organization?

We realize businesses and organizations have different needs and available resources. That’s why the SHARP Method is available at two different levels.

SHARP FOCUS involves our team completing the entire SHARP Method work for you and preparing the marketing plan for your team’s implementation. This takes approximately 12-14 weeks.
SHARP Precision includes all the same analysis and deliverables as SHARP Focus but includes the first year of implementation by the Rasor team. If you opt to do it on your own following the steps in the book, it may be faster or slower, depending on your internal team’s workload.