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Marketing to Vertical Industries

February 18th, 2008 | Maureen Beattie

Many of our clients have indicated that vertical industries are an important target audience and most provide technology solutions specific to these industries. Still, we often see vertical industries (the most common being financial, government, healthcare and manufacturing) as a secondary or tertiary target audience in a broader marketing program. Why don’t more vendors create marketing programs that target vertical industries?  Don’t they have the content assets specific to the industry(s)? No additional budget to target this audience? Or do they simply not know how to go about creating or implementing such a program? The answer is likely a combination of these issues. I am surprised however at the number of clients who have solutions for vertical industries yet little to no content created beyond data sheets or brochures.

I have had the opportunity to work with several clients on successful vertical marketing programs. The most important element is to have a well thought out content strategy that addresses the needs in the industry by guiding people through different phases of the buying cycle. An integrated approach works best, a mixture of white papers, case studies, demos/trials, analyst papers, webcasts, data sheets, etc. This variety provides useful information to the user whether he/she is in the early stages of research, consideration or product trial. Reviewing your competitors’ content can also help with determining any content gaps that need to be filled.

The same rules apply with marketing programs that target a broader audience. Seems like common marketing sense, right? Then why aren’t more vendors implementing vertical programs? My educated guess is that they do not have the bandwidth to create the specific content required. The content that targets the broader initiative is top priority. My suggestion is to create the vertical content simultaneously with the broader content. This way both sets of content will have format alignment while addressing different audiences. And, paying writers and/or analysts for one big job will be more efficient than several one-offs down the road. Once the right content is created, targeted promotion to select the industry should provide great results.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Vertical Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

One response to “Marketing to Vertical Industries”

  1. Glenn Gow Says:
    February 19th, 2008 at 1:19 am

    Maureen,

    You ask a great question – Why don’t more vendors create marketing programs that target vertical industries? I think the answer is a bit more complex than you detail in your post. Here’s how I answer it:

    1) World-class vertical marketing takes executive level commitment. No commitment, no success. As we mention in “CMOs: Step It Up” (http://www.achievemarketleadership.com/?p=147), this is the responsibility of the CMO.
    2) Companies must recognize that this is a significant cultural shift, not a casual “marketing” shift. Products may change. New solutions may be developed. New positioning is required. New alliances are almost certainly required, along with new channel partners. Companies may require a retooling of their sales organization as well. This is a big deal.
    3) The vertical “shift” will take time. A long time. Many years will pass before the organization can determine success, and as we know, ROI is hard to measure on this particular topic.

    So, what’s a world-class marketer to do?

    1) Determine the right verticals. This is based on size (don’t forget telecom!) and your ability to differentiate a solution within a vertical.
    2) Identify the hot spots within the vertical. What and where is it that people really want to buy?
    3) Determine who the buyers are. You will find they are different from who you sold to via a horizontal approach.
    4) Determine what the “whole product” needs to look like. It is different from what you have today.
    5) Determine what partners you need to deliver that whole product. You will almost certainly need a new set of alliance and channel partners.
    6) Determine your go-to-market strategy (with which partners, with what solutions, into which markets?)
    7) Build the teams you need, with the right domain expertise (people who understand that vertical), both internally and externally.
    8) Develop your positioning and messaging around your new solutions. See “Marketing Gets the Message” (http://www.achievemarketleadership.com/?p=26) for more info.
    9) Pilot your approach into your highest priority vertical.
    10) Rinse and repeat for each vertical.

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