October 2004
How Well Do You Know Your Clients?
As PR practitioners struggle to master not just their clients' business, but their clients' customers' business, vertical marketing becomes an ever more important skill.
By Marivi Lerdo-de-Tejada
It used to be that the only thing a PR specialist needed was a vague understanding of a company's product, enough familiarity with the necessary acronyms to fake knowledge of the market, and a good Rolodex of media contacts.
Later, pioneers in the high-tech PR industry such as Regis McKenna, Melissa Waggener, Pam Edstrom, and Andy Cunningham raised the bar, making it a requirement that practitioners understand not only the technologies and products in question, but the market dynamics, competitive landscape, decision-makers, influencers, and spheres of influence (and influencers' influencers).
"Now, vertical industry marketing is a central component of many PR campaigns and requires thorough study as well as an agency's best strategic thinking." Today, it's not enough to know about the client company. PR professionals need to understand the particulars of the industries they are targeting—whether the industry is pharmaceuticals, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, consumer goods, telecommunications, or something else.
Savvy PR agencies hire professionals dedicated to understanding key vertical industries. These professionals know that understanding the challenges facing their clients' financial services customers, for example, may require knowledge of key regulatory and legislative measures such as Sarbanes-Oxley, as well as how technology can facilitate compliance. Those targeting the manufacturing sector, on the other hand, may need a strong grasp of the increasingly popular Six Sigma methodology embraced by so many manufacturers. And those focused on telecommunications and wireless might need to understand the effects of local number portability on customer churn.
Vertical marketing is not new. For years, key vertical trade magazines and websites have been on every PR professional's target media list. But these outlets were often an afterthought—places to pitch a particular customer case study or opportunities for junior team members to practice calling the media. Now, vertical industry marketing is a central component of many PR campaigns and requires thorough study as well as an agency's best strategic thinking.
This trend reflects changes in the way technology companies now approach the market. For example, companies such as Siebel Systems, Sun, and HP have developed and sold customized solutions for specific vertical industries for many years. A quick review of the 2004 editorial calendars for the top IT trade publications reveals a growing interest in covering specific vertical industries. In fact, Information Week is revamping its entire beat structure to assign particular industries to each reporter, instead of merely dividing up the areas of coverage by technology category.
This is good news for PR agencies that have always valued in-depth knowledge of their clients' business and are quick to embrace change—but it's terrible news for agencies that have relied on armies of young, undertrained staffers with only rudimentary knowledge of the day's "pitch." As PR practitioners struggle to master not just their clients' business, but their clients' customers' business, the gap between the average PR practitioner and the truly masterful PR strategist will continue to widen, as will the gap between the agencies that are providing merely bodies in front of desks and agencies capable of helping clients establish markets, generate leads, and build corporate reputations.
About the author:
Marivi Lerdo-de-Tejada works for OnPR, an agency specializing in serving companies in the wireless, enterprise software and consumer technology industries. Email her at marivil@onpr.com.
