Where one-size-fits-all fails and how to customize marketing messaging for industry success

One size rarely fits all. Applied to your marketing messaging, that’s especially true.  

B2B purchasing decisions are complex. Marketers can expect 80% of B2B purchasing decisions to involve three or more people, according to Forrester. Understanding and engaging with buyer groups through relevant and personalized content is important to success.  

And if your audience spans multiple industries, expect a whole new set of challenges, regulations, and characteristics that influence purchasing decisions. Understanding these intricacies is crucial for extending your reach across specialized industries such as healthcare, financial services, public sector, and manufacturing – to name just a few.  

When you can speak directly to the specific concerns of an industry, you build credibility and trust. Potential customers are more likely to engage with your messaging if it demonstrates a deep understanding of their world and offers relevant solutions to their problems. 

This blog explores how to tailor industry-focused marketing messaging. 

Become a trusted advisor by building industry expertise 

To become a trusted advisor, build expertise with deep research into: 

• • Industry trends and forecasts: what is shaping the industry today? What is the future outlook? Are there emerging trends or opportunities? How do broader economic factors impact the industry?  

• • Pain points: what challenges does the industry face? What are the highest priorities? 

• • Regulations: what specific regulations or compliance requirements exist and must be adhered to? Does this differ by location?  

• • Industry leaders: what companies make up the industry? Who are the influential voices that shape opinions and trends? Are there key partnerships, alliances, or ecosystems in the industry? 

• • Key stakeholders: who are the individuals involved in the buying process? What matters to them and influences their purchasing decisions? What do they expect in terms of service, features, and overall experience? 

• • Language: is there industry-specific terminology and jargon? 

• • Competitive analysis: What technologies are used by the industry today? Are there certain companies that dominate servicing particular industries? 

A comprehensive understanding of an industry will allow marketers to identify and develop industry-specific use cases.  

Practical steps to verticalize your marketing messaging 

Once you’ve acquired sufficient industry understanding, you can customize your marketing messaging with these practical strategies: 

#1 Tap internal information sources 

Review your existing customers. Do you have customers today that are in the industry you want to focus on? A great approach is to interview those involved in the deal. Speak to the sales and solution engineering leads and other experts involved to capture how you work with customers in that industry today. Align this first-hand information to your industry research. Document the information in a win wire format for future use.  

#2 Tailor your value proposition 

Align pain points to business outcomes by clearly articulating how you solve the industry’s unique challenges. As you adjust your messaging framework, consider adding sections to explore: 

1. 1. Market research and industry trends: identify top priorities and trends in the industry and how your solution influences business outcomes.

      As an example, smart connected manufacturing is a trend where manufacturers are looking to streamline operations, gain end-to-end visibility and establish better control over processes. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are a specialized solution aimed at supporting smart connected manufacturing imperatives. 

   2. Business drivers, pain points, and solution benefits: chart the key pain points of the industry and how your product is the best fit for each use case.

      As an example, in marketing and advertising, maximizing project profitability is a business imperative. For many agencies, reliance on disparate systems for management and billing means limited visibility of profitability, leading to overservicing, slower revenue recognition, forecasting challenges, and other issues. For one Microsoft partner, IP built on the Microsoft platform delivers an end-to-end solution that gives complete visibility into the workflow of project from bid to billing, helping to optimize quotes, increase utilization, and drive profitability.  

   3. Personas: list key personas within the industry and document who they are, what their priorities are, what they’re doing today, and what they want to achieve. Delve into the specific challenges, needs, and desires of each audience segment.

      In the marketing and advertising example, we identified four key roles to influence, each with different pain points and priorities. These included Sales and Marketing, Finance and Administration, Human Resources, and Project Management and IT. An end-to-end solution held benefits for each. For Sales and Marketing, it supported profitable relationships through client engagement dashboards, simplified reports and collaborative workspaces for CRM/marketing activities. For Finance and Administration, the solution enabled real-time visibility and access into operations, better accuracy and efficiency in invoicing and billing, and repeatable processes to control costs and maximize resources. Documenting this level of detail allows you to communicate how you understand their world. 

   4. Messaging pillars: develop concise and clear messaging pillars. Consider ranking potential pillars based on relevance to the industry, its audience, and the brand value proposition. Develop concise and clear statements for each pillar and support them with data, testimonials, case studies, or product features that reinforce the message. This is a good place to identify any industry-specific language and provide messaging examples that communicate the core idea effectively.

      For best practices, read how to fix your marketing messaging. 

Integrate into communications with industry-specific marketing materials 

As you integrate each industry into your content strategy, you can develop industry-specific marketing materials and campaigns. After each stage of customization, it’s a good idea to solicit feedback to validate effectiveness in the new industry.  

Consider creating:  

• • Case studies and whitepapers that highlight successful implementations and the benefits realized by industry peers. 

• • Webinars and demos that address industry-specific challenges and showcase your expertise. 

• • Sales-enablement content such as battlecards, win wires, and sell sheets, internal or customer-facing, that focus on the industry challenges and your product use cases.  

• • Targeted content such as blog posts, articles, infographics, and social posts that support your broader industry message and showcase expertise in the space (not just your product) to build ongoing credibility.  

Go to market with industry-led content and campaigns to support sales 

You’ll need to continuously monitor the effectiveness of your messaging as you go to market with industry-focused content and campaigns. This industry-led approach is a key tactic we embed in our clients’ marketing strategies to support sales success.  

If you’d like to learn more about how marketing can help sales, read Gail Mercer-MacKay’s blog detailing her lessons from over twenty years in technology sales.