As a marketer, I am embarrassed that I haven’t continued blogging these past few months but family issues have kept me busy. Now that life has settled down some, I plan to focus on more timely blog entries. Over the next week or so, I’d like to focus on segmentation challenges and tips for SMB enterprise software companies.
In speaking with executives of SMB enterprise software companies (tech companies with less than $1b in annual revenues), one top of mind issue that prevails is how to improve messaging so that it better resonates with the audience. While some software companies have been temporarily successful staying with an extended horizontal play – one message for everyone – (e.g., Pre-Oracle Seibel for CRM), eventually even these organizations needed a segmentation approach.
Segmentation and targeting is not a cookie cutter approach. What works for one organization probably doesn’t apply for another. So here are some tips…
For most organizations, segmentation means “going vertical”. The reason is simple. If you are looking to refine messaging to identify business pain points, companies in the same segments have the same problems and pain. Other organizations tend to focus on what I call “cross-company segmentation” – focus on “like-kind” departments such as legal, marketing, finance, etc. regardless of the vertical.
Most of this blog series will address the “going vertical” approach although I’ll touch briefly on some lead generation tips for organizations that execute to a cross-company segmentation approach later on.
So how does a small enterprise software company go vertical? The answer is…slowly and deliberately. The first step - get agreement across the organization what “going vertical” means because there are different approaches and or phases:
(1) Segmented messaging: Collateral and online content are developed to address specific vertical market(s).
(2) Segmented marketing: Uses segmented messaging to execute marketing communication and/or lead generation campaigns.
(3) Segmented sales: Some or all of sales force and/or channels focus on specific verticals.
(4) Any combination of the above
Next blog: Choosing what verticals and how….
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