HOTEL MALL - Pretty Pragmatic...promises the most ROI is Account Based Marketing (ABM). These...

HOTEL

MALLSCHOOL HOSPITAL

vertical views

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TECHNOLOGY TELECOMS EDUCATION ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION MANUFACTURING RETAIL SME HOSPITALITY FINANCIAL SERVICES PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LOCAL GOV’T NOT-FOR-PROFIT HEALTHCARE

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‘a pretty pragmatic perspective’

HOTEL

MALLSCHOOL HOSPITAL

vertical views




There are many trending approaches to B2B marketing, and one that promises the most ROI is Account Based Marketing (ABM). These approaches of one-to-one, one-to-few and one-to-many rely on insights beyond the technical platforms that enable targeting and serving of relevant content. They rely on vertical insight, content and subsequent relevance. In fact, ABM ‘Lite’, as ITSMA has termed it, is vertical marketing repackaged for modern B2B marketers.

The chances are that if you’re in business, your growth targets increase with each financial year. So, unless you’re launching the most innovative, must-have ‘thing’ on a regular basis, you probably need to explore other avenues that can bring about business growth. A sensible option is to expand into other industries or verticals. This means you can sell the same or similar products and solutions to organisations outside of the vertical(s) you are used to selling. Sounds straightforward enough, right?

But do you know your healthcare from your hospitality? With new verticals comes new variables; challenges, audiences, language and legislation.

A simple example is in retail you have customers, in hospitality, typically, you have guests. Language per vertical can differ quite considerably, tech and finance being examples where you almost need to learn a new set of terms and acronyms to understand what’s important and how to talk about those topics.

It’s about applying some pragmatism when deciding where your market share and sales growth is going to come from. We’ve helped several clients to do just this and consequently have some simple dos and don’ts.

We’d like to welcome you to our ‘Vertical Views’, a best practise approach to vertical marketing for B2B.

vertical views, ‘a pretty pragmatic perspective’

a bit of background

HOTEL

MALLSCHOOL HOSPITAL

vertical views




innovation park development district leisure centre suit street caring corner

Is retail going to rack up the ROI? Or are you going to find your fortune in finance? Before you start purchasing data or sponsoring events, what, if any, opportunity exists and where? Why is this a reasonable opportunity for your business and how does your product or service fit into this market? What is the commercial value? Who is already competing and what is their respective market shares? Do you understand the vertical pressures and requirements? Essentially, you’ll need to apply a little due diligence and do some digging before diving in head first.

This shouldn’t be a complex process, and a good old industry audit and analysis should give you a firm grounding to assess whether there is a viable opportunity for your business. This forms the business case for or against, and should help mitigate risk of time and investment aligned to this opportunity.

You could be on for a hearty return in healthcare or perhaps you’ll realise you need a few more qualifications to sell to education.


Market audit framework

we’d like to welcome you to our ‘vertical views’, our best practise approach to vertical marketing for b2b.

here’s our 5-point plan to give you a simple framework for verticalising your marketing strategy and opening up

new sales opportunities.

1. Opportunity identification

market opportunity

competitors

pressures

influencers

commercials

Are they building out a long list of vendors or banking the budget? Understanding your audience and the role they play in the buyer journey is important as new verticals are niche, and with that come different people with various motivations and objectives.

The B2B buyer unit involves multiple roles along the path to purchase. On average, we see 6 roles within the Decision-Making Unit (DMU) across verticals. This correlates with the 5.4 roles identified by CEB.

Therefore, it is more important than ever that you understand who you are speaking and selling to. What are their personas and how do they buy?

Building your DMU and mapping persona profiles to these will allow you to unveil insights to allow more accurate targeting.

Once this is understood, mapping out the customer journey and subsequent content mapping should be a natural, simple progression.


Persona profile template

2. The audience

Have you got a set of tools that will allow you to build a presence in your target vertical?

Have you got the creds to get through to the telecoms sector or the right solutions to raise enough interest from the finance sector?

Is your offer and the benefits it brings clear and relevant? Do you have proof points and referencibility? This is often tricky and a little chicken and egg. Simply because if you are entering a vertical for the first time, the chances are you probably don’t have any vertical specific references. But this shouldn’t be a stumbling block.

Perhaps you should consider offering a Proof of Concept (PoC) or an audit to demonstrate where your offer could help. If you are global, are you leaning on case studies from other countries that could provide a quick win?

Quite often it is worth looking at similar verticals where you have solved a comparable set of challenges to demonstrate your credentials. It is worth weighing up whether you’ve got the right blend of proof and product so using our quadrant you can quickly evaluate what to leverage and how.


Credible categories quadrant

3. Making a connection

solutions expertise

evidence references

Do you expect a warm welcome in hospitality? Are you hooked up in tech? An important and often considered approach to targeting a vertical is to partner with established and invested 3rd parties who have built contacts and communities with the audiences you want to communicate with and get in front of.

This is possibly one of the most varied components of your strategy, but a great way of piggy-backing on the influence these 3rd parties have and gaining gravitas by association.

Among these 3rd parties will be media publications, associations and organisations. These will offer reach to their subscribers and visitors, face-to-face interactions via trade forums and events, a broadcast and communication platform or multi-layered sponsorship opportunities.


The sphere of influence

4. Invested influencers

£

MEDIA

INFLUENCERS

EVENTS

Do you know your ISPs from your SATs or the CQC from QSR? Language and messaging can vary by vertical.

Acronyms and terminology can also be dramatically different. So, what better way to make sense to a new vertical than to talk their language.

Do they prefer to read, listen to or view content? Are they time poor or time takers? Does your current messaging resonate and does your content convert?

Perhaps some simple tweaking and repositioning is all you need, however, sponsoring or commissioning some existing industry thought leadership and/or research can be necessary to cut through within a new vertical.


Content mapping framework

5. Say what with what?

This 5-point plan highlights the key areas necessary to address when targeting a new vertical, but as we know there’s always a little more detail and process to ensure an effective campaign.

Once you’ve considered the vertical components there are a few steps to consider from deciding what success looks like to enabling the sales team to meet the metrics. Our campaign framework should connect everything; engineering your success by building a healthy and profitable vertical venture for your business.


Campaign model

In summary

10. reporting

2. objective setting

1. situational analysis

3. aud

ienc

e, market

& data an

alysis

4. c

omms & c

onte

nt

desig

n

5. lead scoring6. asset & content

creation

7. campaign activation

8. l

ead

ro

uti

ng

& ha

nd

ov

er9.

sal

es e

nable

ment

campaign proposition

[email protected]

0117 9000 924If you’re interested in discussing this or any other marketing matter further please contact us via any of the channels listed and we’d be delighted to hear from you.

LET’S GET IN TOUCH

HOTEL

MALLSCHOOL HOSPITAL

vertical views




If you’d like to find out a little more about us before a chat, then visitwww.prettypragmatic.com

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