In its simplest terms, vertical marketing means tailoring an organization’s sales, products, and marketing efforts to a specific industry. This specialization allows you to focus your marketing efforts and production resources so that they can have the greatest impact. Targeting vertical markets is an important strategy for driving sales and efficiently using resources. In fact, as highlighted in the Keypoint Intelligence - InfoTrends’ study, Winning in an Evolving Print Market, 63% of Print Service Providers (PSPs) demonstrating high growth have a vertical market focus. While this type of focused marketing offers many benefits to print service providers, vertical marketing is not always an easy task. It challenges organizations to change. For PSPs to find success requires them to focus on the best industries to target for their capabilities and a strong commitment by their leadership.

As you are developing your next strategy, consider these five benefits of vertical: 

• More effective sales messaging. Understanding the nuances of an industry leads to reality-based sales and marketing messages that demonstrate a clear understanding of prospective customers’ needs. For example, the things that matter financial services firms are very different from the things that matter to retailers, restaurants, and health care providers.
• Improves brand recognition and positions an organization as an expert in serving an industry’s unique needs. Focusing marketing efforts on a select number of industries and demonstrating industry knowledge and understanding captures market attention and boosts the confidence customers and prospects have in an organization.  
• Ability to target the most profitable customers. Following the trends in an industry, understanding terminology, and profiling industry leaders offers key insights to select and pursue the best prospects.
• Better use of resources to identify, learn about, and reach decision-makers. Focusing attention on an industry to understand its dynamics, characteristics, and key trends provides a solid foundation to identify new opportunities, unmet needs, and key decision makers and influencers.
• Developing new services. A specialized focus also provides the vision necessary to create new products and services. Having a deep understanding of an industry provides the foundation to identify unmet needs, create new products and services, and solve challenges that market participants may not realize they have. 

Maybe you are already focusing on a vertical industry today. If you’re feeling tapped out, consider an adjacent industry to keep your focus while expanding your base. Or, perhaps you haven’t taken the time to narrow your target markets because you just don’t know where to start? Do an assessment exercise and map your products and services to the best vertical market opportunity that fits your business. The following charts from InfoTrends research should help you get started.

Total Communication Spending

Top Application Spending by Industry

Source: In Search of Business Opportunities: Finding the Right Prospects, InfoTrends 2017

Nichole Jones is a Senior Product Manager for Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends’ Business Development Strategies consulting service. Her responsibilities include managing the promotion and distribution of content and assisting clients and channels in building business development programs. She is also responsible for developing curriculum and content for e-Learning programs, which deliver online sales training.