There are various kinds of efforts taken by the verticals in order to improve their credibility amongst users. But before we begin decoding that we need to first understand:
What is a vertical market?
Verticals or vertical markets are business niches. In this kind of market, vendors serve just a specific set of audience and their needs. Vertical markets have found a flourishing space in e-commerce since there’s just minimal overhead cost and people can reach a global audience. An example of a vertical market would be a company that specifically makes software for the internet industry. It should also be kept in mind that vertical markets are also geographically based. While many might think that this kind of market would severely limit profits but there are some advantages which this kind of specialization provides.
What are horizontals?
A horizontal market focuses on a wide range of individuals, irrespective of niche or the industry. An example of this could be a clothing company. A clothing company makes clothes for lots of different kinds of industries. It makes school uniforms, wedding dresses, evening dresses, casual wear and such. Of course, there are clothing companies that cater to just one kind of clothing trend or style. They will then fall into the verticals.
Advantages of verticals?
In contrast to horizontals where the companies have to cater to a large number of people, industries and such verticals only have to focus on one thing generally. This focus provides many advantages:
- The company is more familiar with the changes, regulation, trends as well as competition in the industry.
- Vertical companies can charge higher rates since they have specialized knowledge about a particular niche or industry they serve.
- Online businesses tend to engage with vertical companies more than horizontally when it comes to outreach campaigns and targeted marketing.
- Vertical companies let one create one single unified advertising effort which can be instituted all across the board. So from an advertising perspective, verticals are preferred.
- When companies specialize in niche products then they are allowed to perfect their services and products easily. This further allows then to easily dominate the market.
- Vertical companies face less competition. This results in quicker as well as cheaper exposure to organic search results (SEO) and other paid keywords.
How can different companies improve their credibility to their specific user base?
Even though specialization is advantageous from many fronts as seen above but it also creates a disadvantage. This limits the revenue potential of the company. But it doesn’t just limit that, the specialization can exclude a potential user base as well. To prevent these companies try to prove their credibility to their user base. They do this through the following methods:
- Third-party awards: Showing the awards acquired from third-party sources will boost consumer confidence in your company. Of course, these awards should be from reputed sources like trade magazines and industry regulators. These awards will prove to potential customers that your company can be trusted, by an impartial reviewer. Awards from third party sources are important for small verticals. It prevents them from closing down and also helps build market credibility and reputation.
- Online wallets: By offering a variety of trusted payment services like Gpay, PayPal and such, verticals can give a lot of options to their potential customers in terms of payment. Many verticals, such as the online casino industry, invest in improving their credibility using online wallets. In general, most companies deal with heavy orders so giving their customers the ability to pay in any form they like ensures flexibility. Many companies still deal exclusively with cash or cheques. This kind of decision ensures that their company is excluded from a bigger user base.
- E-commerce: Having the company on an e-commerce platform ensures that your customers know about your products and can easily get it. This provides accessibility to your products. Also being on an e-commerce platform ensures that you can be trusted since the reputed e-commerce sites do check the reputation of the company as well as its products. This is to determine if these companies should be on their platform or not. After all, the reputation of the e-commerce site is also at stake here. They can lose customers if they have frauds on their platform.
- Customer reviews: Associated with the above point, it’s important to have customer reviews. Customer reviews bolster the confidence of other customers on your product and company. Many people first choose to read customer reviews since they are not biased before committing to finally buying something. It’s important to have such reviews not just in your e-commerce portal but also on your company website.
- Personality in a brand: A great way to ensure that your company is able to thrive in a vertical is by building a good reputation and unique personality. This will ensure that customers immediately think of the good credibility of your company when they see the name. There are some straightforward ways to build a good personality and that is by providing great service or great products. Apart from this, trendy ad campaigns and freebies will help establish your brand as different from others.
Using all these methods will ensure that you are able to acquire the much-needed credibility for your company. This credibility will help your business thrive and prosper in the long run in your vertical.