MSP Marketing and Sales: Why You Need Verticals

Some MSPs choose to provide their services to specific markets, commonly referred to as a “vertical.” But what is a vertical? A vertical is fundamentally synonymous with the term “industry” or “field.” For example, healthcare is a vertical. The legal field is a vertical. Even though you have designed your services to serve different types of clientele, your client may have specialized in a niche market. That is why choosing a vertical for your services is very important since each vertical may have the issues that are unique to them. You are in the market to make profits. Keeping that in mind, you want to make sure that the vertical market you choose has growth potential, a sound infrastructure and opportunities for effective synergies with your firm. There are several ways to determine which verticals will have the most potential for you.

Here are some of things to remember:

1. Return on your investment. Your business is driven by the potential for profits. You have to determine which vertical market covers wider demographics. That is significant for a consistent growth in your revenue.

2. Bigger profit margins. Which vertical markets have the bigger profit margins and can afford your services comfortably? Some businesses have wider profit margins because of the complexity of their services. Financial services markets are far better than retail sector in profit margins. You don’t want to serve a business that is characterized by exceptionally tight margins.

3. Geographic location. Location of your clients can make a difference in efficiency of your service delivery. Even though you may provide some services remotely, at some point you have to determine the geographic radius that your business will serve. This is essential as travel time cuts into revenue, and it also restricts your capacity to respond quickly and limit client downtime.

4. The ideal size of your target firms. The size of an enterprise’s IT infrastructure should also guide how you target. At what point are systems too small to create significant returns, and what size outstrips your capacity to provide optimal service. Also, at what point is the target firm large enough to support its own in-house IT support.

5. Number of businesses. What is the density of the verticals in the area you have chosen? You need to choose a segment that has sufficient size to be able to drive your revenues.

6. Usage of technology. Which market is more technology driven? Obviously almost every business is using technology, but some may be more reliant than others.

8. Seriousness of the challenges. Which verticals find themselves overwhelmed by the pain-points caused by technology or the lack of it?

Smaller business and start-ups are far less likely to have the revenues or need to have full-time support on the payroll. The good news for MSPs is that technology is evolving every day. This means continuing opportunities for you. Ongoing change means ongoing challenge for non-technically focused end users.

And there is even better news for you. Using a Sales Enablement software platform will enhance your capabilities in marketing and sales and reduce your cost in time and money, making you even more competitive in today’s environment of tough competition..