Increase IT Service Delivery Revenues Through Vertical-Specific Marketing

When working with our Partners, we've noticed that the more vertical-specific a Partner is, the more successful they are in terms of gross revenues.  Partners who have not focused their marketing efforts on specific verticals generally have the lowest gross revenues and are more likely to rely on referrals as their primary source of new client acquisition.

The benefits of focusing on specific vertical markets are numerous.  Once you focus your efforts on a specific vertical and understand the biggest “pains” that industry experiences, you can offer solutions that will decrease or eliminate those common pains, reduce their costs and increase their efficiency.  Working with multiple businesses within the same industry means you already have the potential solutions to their pains – since they're all going to experience similar problems!  You can do the research and come up with solutions once; and then leverage that knowledge to all businesses within the same industry experiencing the same problems.

For example, if you decided to focus on the vertical market of Attorneys, some of their common business “pains” may include:

• Being heavily dependent upon email
• Requiring access to their files and email while traveling, in court sessions or trials
• Use specific business applications which are a challenge to maintain and keep up to date, like Timeslips or Westlaw
• Often work long hours, evenings and weekends to prepare for motions and trials

As you address these specific pain points that most Attorney's experience, you can create marketing messages that will attract Attorneys looking for solutions to these problems.  A sample of a marketing message you might use could be:

“Frustrating email problems got you down? Having trouble getting to critical files in the office when you’re at home or in court? Tired of waiting on the line for Timeslips Technical Support? Call us now to find out how we help our Legal clients reduce email downtime, provide secure remote access to critical data when out of the office, and quickly handle Timeslips and Westlaw technical support issues.”

The marketing message is specific to their actual business pains, which will be far more effective than a general message that simply states your company provides remote access to files and handles technical support issues.  Once you've discovered the challenges a specific industry faces, you can develop solutions and compelling marketing messages that will have businesses within that vertical knocking down your door for the solutions to their problems!

When you generate new clients from referrals, chances are you'll end up working with businesses across a wide variety of industries.  Every industry has its own unique challenges and “pains”, and you'll spend far more time trying to figure out what those pains are so you can provide solutions.  Select a handful of verticals to focus your marketing efforts on and leverage the knowledge you gain.  You'll soon profit from the time you’ve already spent learning the workflow, business processes, line of business applications, troubleshooting and maintenance techniques of the original client, and apply this knowledge to the new client – saving you time and effort and allowing you to provide higher quality services to all of your clients.

Click here to learn more about vertical-specific marketing

Erick Simpson
MSP University
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Comments

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This gives me an idea that "Once you focus your efforts on a specific vertical and understand the biggest “pains” that industry experiences, you can offer solutions that will decrease or eliminate those common pains, reduce their costs and increase their efficiency." This information is really a big help, very informative. Thanks.

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