Part II - Tips on how SMB Enterprise Software Companies can better segment

This is a 2nd posting on this topic. See posting dated August 12, 2009 for Part I of this series.

'Segmented messaging’ is typically a first “baby step” that many SMB software organizations choose when “going vertical”. The challenge you face is: where do I get the content? The answers are:

(1) Identify company personnel who have specific industry expertise and/or

(2) Hire part time consultants who have the domain expertise you need as an interim step and/or

(3) If you have already defined your longer term roll-out plan for verticalization and plan to move to “segmented marketing”, you may want to consider hiring marketing professionals with domain expertise.

‘Segmented marketing’ means that you plan to target all of your marketing messages directly to a given segment by developing an “integrated marketing” model and I emphasize the word “integrated”. In the past, I have seen organizations move to segmented marketing but in a fragmented way, e.g., run segmented lead generation campaigns but not segment the message in media, public or analyst relations. I have never seen a fragmented marketing model work. In fact, every like-kind approach was an abysmal failure forcing the organization to revert back to the former “horizontal” model. (And typically try a vertical approach again a few years down the road).

Marketing messages need to be consistent. If your PR team is talking a different talk than your lead generation team, you will more than likely waste marketing dollars and never realize an acceptable ROI on segmentation.

‘Segmented sales’ occurs when the sales force is verticalized but this is not an all-or-nothing approach. In fact, in most cases, sales verticalization is localized. Metropolitan areas may realign sales over verticals where there are large concentrations of companies whereas rural geographies might identify multiple verticals or not verticalize at all. In some cases, both sales and pre-sales technical support may be verticalized or just sales. In other cases, (and this is prevalent in initial phases), sales will not be initially verticalized but sales “domain experts” - what we call “rain makers” - work with sales as an “overlay” function.

Unlike segmented marketing where only an integrated approach will work, there are many successful segmented sales models.

Next blog answers your question: Ok…I’m convinced I need to “go vertical” but what product/solution am I selling?