Vertical Marketing
What is vertical marketing?
A vertical market is an industry, or group of enterprises, in which similar products or services are developed and marketed using similar methods (and to whom goods and services can be sold). Broad examples of vertical markets are insurance, legal, real estate, banking, manufacturing, media, retail, transportation, healthcare and government.
New technology tends to have different applications for different sectors, so it's no surprise vendors often take an industry specific go-to-market (GTM) approach. Focusing on industry verticals enables you to address buyers' specific pain points and demonstrate how your offering can be applied to give their business a competitive advantage, giving your brand the profile, relevance, and authority you need to build more pipeline.
What are the benefits?
- Earn customers’ trust by demonstrating a clear understanding of their needs
- Demonstrate a commitment to a particular vertical by allocating resources to it
- Improve brand recognition in key verticals through focused marketing efforts
- Develop new ideas by using vertical-specific insight to find new applications for your products or services
- Differentiate yourself from the competition by being positioned as a trusted expert in your customers’ space
eGuide
The Power of Verticals
Your vertical marketing strategy could be anything from creating simple, industry-specific landing pages and adapted messaging, to developing distinct GTM models for each sector.
Whatever your approach, our eGuide takes you through the key considerations for ensuring you:
- Build programmes that are informed by each vertical's context, drivers and challenges
- Establish a framework that maximises value and enables easy, effective roll-out to new verticals
- Embed alignment across all relevant teams and stakeholders throughout the business
This eGuide covers:
- How vertical should you be?
- How can you create compelling, sector-specific content?
- How can you make sure that the whole business is aligned?

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QuickGuide
8 steps to vertical success
We’ve learnt a lot about what works best for B2B companies going vertical. From our experience, we have developed 8 guiding principles for vertical success. We’ve summarised them here, or check out our QuickGuide for more detail on how to build a successful vertical strategy.
1. Build cross-functional alignment
2. Establish a framework for everyone to work within
3. Phase your implementation
4. Take time to develop good insight
5. Develop compelling stories and points of view
6. Enable your sales and channel teams
7. Engage your audiences in the places they congregate
8. Test, Learn, Refine.
Case Studies
How we've helped
Cable&Wireless Worldwide
Cable&Wireless Worldwide vertical GTM strategy
Cable&Wireless Worldwide needed a vertical go-to-market strategy to strengthen their position in the enterprise market. OneGTM provided end-to-end support in understanding the competitive environment, defining the proposition and GTM plans, and built GTM toolkits and sales enablement programmes.
Samsung
Helping Samsung to change the channel mindset
Samsung wanted to introduce their mobile device-based business solutions with the aim to grow market share and build stronger channel engagement. OneGTM created vertical specific campaign toolkits to increase channel engagement that resulted in increased reach and improved partner relations.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Building three-way vertical propositions for Hewlett Packard Enterprise & Scality
HPE & Scality wanted to drive sales into key verticals with a compelling, joint value proposition. OneGTM helped them develop this proposition and equip partners and sales teams with the tools needed to communicate to prospective customers.
Blog
More vertical content

Why vertical GTM is on the up
For B2B tech firms, focusing go-to-market activities around key verticals isn’t a new approach, but significant market trends are making it an increasingly important one. In this blog, we explore some of these driving forces behind the rise of vertical marketing approaches.

Channels are going vertical, vendors need to get aligned
It is increasingly important for vendors to develop their vertical propositions in order to differentiate themselves. The IT channel is at the forefront of this trend. In this article we look at what is driving this shift and why it’s essential that vendors get aligned.

What do vertical marketplaces mean for B2B vendor go-to-market strategy?
Vertical B2B marketplaces are having a significant impact across many industries, increasingly being used for complex, high value sales. In this article, we look at how B2B marketplaces are evolving and what vendors need to do in response.
Let’s talk
Got a specific go-to-market issue you’d like our opinion on? Not sure if we can help, but think it might be worth checking us out anyway?
We’re always happy to pick up the phone, jump on a video call or talk by email.
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