To be successful in this economy, your business needs to be able to grow and seize every opportunity that it can. For many organizations, that means looking outside the current group of customers you serve and into undiscovered markets for new opportunities.
But after focusing on one market for so long, how difficult is it to move into a new one? I'm Marion Williams-Bennett, Pageflex Marketing Communications Specialist. I’ve talked with several Pageflex customers about this idea, and wanted to share some of their thoughts in this issue of Tips and Bits.
First, let’s look at the benefits of the two different ways of addressing market opportunities.
Vertical Market – the Traditional Approach
Vertical Markets are defined as a business that meet the needs of a group of similar businesses and customers that engage in trade based on specific and specialized needs. Some verticals served by our customers include financial services, universities, real estate, and pharmaceuticals.
Working with one vertical market gives your business several advantages. It enables you to cultivate an intimate knowledge of the vertical market and their business challenges so that you can closely match your capabilities to the needs of that market.
In addition, this focus gives you a solid understanding of your customers’ vertical industries and the documents and document-intensive workflows of key importance to those industries.
Finally, working with one specific vertical market is a way for printers to make a successful transition to becoming a marketing service provider. Your knowledge of customers’ needs can help build the foundation for future work, and can expand the relationship into new areas.
Horizontal Approach
Businesses that focus on horizontal markets meet a given need across a wide variety of industries, rather than a specific industry.
The benefits you can earn from working with a range of markets are numerous. First, it enables you to find more opportunities and sell into a wider audience - critical in these economic times. Working with businesses in a range of markets also gives your business the benefit of diversity - diversity of schedules, peak times, and down times. It helps to insulate you from the failure of one industry, and can keep your projects and profits flowing evenly throughout the year.
What about combining both?
In these economic times, it’s critical to have a balance of both strategies. To gain valuable insight into one market, but take those lessons and apply them to new markets.
To do that, look at your work creatively, holistically, and learn to apply lessons from one market to another. Our customers report that while the specific needs of various markets change, there are several common goals that are consistent across markets. Some of these goals include compliance, better return on marketing investment, and streamlining of processes.
Say you have done a lot of work with financial services, for example. You’ve built an online storefront where branch offices of the financial services company can come to customize and produce marketing materials. In addition to customization, you also need legal compliance text to appear on every piece. Finally, the system had to demonstrate efficiencies to the client.
Now, think about other markets who might demand similar requirements – such as pharmaceuticals. Like financial services, the pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated and requires companies to include legally-required compliance information on their marketing materials. Pharmaceutical companies also often have remote sales teams that need to be able to customize marketing materials. And, like most industries, they could benefit from streamlining their processes and gaining efficiencies.
You have the solution that can meet their needs.
It’s finding similarities like these that can enable you to successfully move from one market to the next.
Pageflex has developed case studies on customers who have successfully worked with a variety of vertical markets. If you’d like to learn more about this topic by receiving these case studies, email me at mbennett@bitstream.com.
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