When a quarterback throws a 50 yard bomb to a streaking wide receiver, you'll often hear the announcer talk about how the team is "going vertical."
The same language can be applied to your PR program.
There are very few truly horizontal applications in the world of tech. To effectively market your products and services and communicate with customers, you need to speak their language. That means your PR program has to be able to "go vertical." Whether it's a secure instant messaging application used in the financial services market, or a calculation management solution used by electrical engineers, if you can secure media coverage in key vertical publications, you will more effectively reach targeted buying customers.
What's different about vertical media?
The types of stories that interest editors at vertical publications are often very different from those that get editors enthused at horizontal IT publications. The majority of vertical publications are issued monthly … some even bimonthly or quarterly. With their limited publishing schedule, news stories are just not very important. So don't pitch a news exclusive or a new product briefing … by the time the story can be published, it'll be old news.
What should you focus on when pursuing coverage in vertical media? Three things:
- Customer case studies
- Bylined articles
- Editorial calendar-based feature stories
Customers are key to vertical media receptivity. With these editors, it's often, "no customer, no story." Keep in mind that they are trying to help their readers, let's say pharmaceutical manufacturers in this example, do their job more effectively. The best way to demonstrate that is through the eyes of another pharmaceutical manufacturer. What have they done that's worked? What lessons can readers learn? If your customer can talk to the reporter about how your technology helped solve their own unique problem, chances are you can secure a nice story.
Bylined articles are key to building thought leadership in a specific vertical niche. They're also great for the vertical media, because many of these publications are short-staffed on the editorial side. As a result, vendor - or customer - written bylined articles are published on a regular basis. Submit a thoughtful, non-promotional abstract to the editor, and he or she will give it very strong consideration. If the abstract is accepted, the editor will ask you to write a 1,000 – 2,000 word article to be published (along with a short bio and perhaps a photo).
If you are able to deliver bylined articles and customer stories, you're going to have great success with the vertical media. If you're having trouble with these two items, pursue editorial calendar-based feature stories. Many publications publish an editorial calendar to help sell advertising space. Working three to four months in advance, you can pitch editors on a story or angle that corresponds with their editorial calendar. What are the key ingredients for getting your company included in an editorial calendar story? A customer reference and a vertically-knowledgeable company spokesperson will work very nicely.
It's easy to forget about vertical publications … but that's what many of your customers are reading. Like Tom Brady and Deion Branch, reach them by going vertical.
- Jeff Aubin, VP
