The Marketer's Handbook: Reassessing Marketing Techniques for Modern Business



SECTOR MARKETING

Application: Strategy, Communications, Sales, NPD

The Concept

Sector marketing is an approach which involves the construction of programmes around the knowledge of a particular industrial sector. It is routinely found in business-to-business marketing, where firms, of all shapes and sizes, have “line of business” or “industry” specialists who focus on different industrial sectors. They try to understand issues within it and to customize their firm’s offer to businesses within them. This can range from, on one hand, an informal grouping of professionals across the firm who take an interest in an industrial sector to, on the other hand, a highly qualified specialist designing well researched and well funded marketing programmes. Many companies put significant investment into initiatives which demonstrate their understanding of a sector. It may involve research into trends commissioned by marketers with deep knowledge of a sector or dissemination of the deep knowledge of an expert. Merchant banks, for instance, tend to send out to senior people frequent updates on structural changes in a particular market. Many board level people appreciate these insights and read them avidly.

There are several reasons why sector marketing is valuable:

(i) Perspective

Part of the value to buyers of outside advisors or suppliers is the perspective they develop from ...