SUCCESS IN THE VERTICAL MARKETS
                               BY
                        BRIAN G. WILLIAMS

    One  of  the  most  lucrative  areas  in  the world of computers is the
    vertical market place.  This article  will  give  you  guide  lines  on
    determining  your  market,  designing  your  programme  and making it a
    marketing success.

    When we talk  of  vertical  markets  we  mean  specific  industries  or
    professions.   Programmes  like  dBase  II  or  Rbase and many more are
    readily available to anyone but the knowledge required to benefit  from
    these  programmes  is  unattainable  to  most business and professional
    people due to the time  involved  in  gathering  it.   Most  buyers  of
    computers  for  business  purposes  would be only to happy to find that
    piece of software that is taylor made for them.  So  this  presents  an
    opportunity to people proficient in programming to cash in on this void
    in the market place.

    Vertical software often fetches a price way above  the  off  the  shelf
    variety.   And  as long as you have a good programme and can support it
    on an ongoing basis with updates  and  new  enhancements  there  is  no
    reason why you shouldn't be rewarded for it.


    DETERMINING YOUR MARKET

    Determining  your market place is the first step.  This is probably the
    easiest part.  Look around the high street.  Many retail  outlets  have
    special  needs  like  video  rental  stores  who  need to keep track of
    inventory, members, whose got what movie out, when it due  back,  whose
    membership is due for renewal, keeping track of those people who bought
    a video recorder from them and at key points in time being able to find
    them so that they can make them a special deal on a new machine.

    Football  clubs  need  a piece of software to run the ticketing side of
    things for them.  I recently spoke with the Data Processing manger  for
    the  Cowie  group  in  Sunderland  who  had  been  asked to investigate
    software for Sunderland F.C.  He told me that the only one he found was
    being used by Tottenham Hotspur and that it was a monstrous system that
    was running on machines that are not even made any more.  Tottenham are
    supposed  to  have  paid  over twenty thousand pounds for software that
    doesn't even come close to what they want.

    Once you've determined your market it's probably a good idea  to  do  a
    little  market  research.  If your not to familiar with the industry or
    profession that you have chosen design a questionnaire and go  and  see
    some  of  them to find out what they need;  ask them what they want and
    design your system around that.  Simple.


    PROGRAMME DESIGN

    Good design of your programme is a key element  to  success.   Make  it
    easy  to  use (other wise the user may as well have learnt to programme
    himself).  Menu driven fill in the blanks are the  programmes  business
    people  are  looking for.  Keep as much consistency as possible between
    menus, like 0 always means quit from any menu.  Exiting from  any  menu
    always  takes  you back to the main menu.  Have as few input screens as
    possible and try and design them so that  data  that  is  edited  on  a
    regular  basis  is  always  at  the  beginning.  Again maintain as much
    consistency as possible between screens (don't use  SEARCHNAME  on  one
    screen and LASTNAME on another).

    The  reports  that  come from your programme will usually make or break
    it.  Make them easy to understand.  Use  jargon  that  your  particular
    market place understands and again maintain consistency from one report
    to the next.   Have  the  report  that  they  all  want  (this  can  be
    determined  through  your  market research).  Think carefully about the
    people who will be using them (the stock clerk needs to know what  he's
    running  low  on  not  the quarters profits but the sales manager might
    need to know both).  A  programme  that  I  helped  design  was  geared
    towards  the  Financial Planning Profession in the USA.  The one report
    report that sold our programme more than any of the other features  was
    the  "CASH  FLOW  AND  TAX ANALYSIS".  Planners could at the touch of a
    button produce a report for any or all of their  clients  showing  what
    income  the  clients  would earn that year and what their tax liability
    would be.  This helped them  motivate  their  clients  to  invest  more
    dollars  to  reduce  their  tax liability and consequently increase the
    planners income.

    BETA TEST SITES

    If possible, get someone in your industry to  use  your  programme  and
    give  you  feed  back as to bugs and possible enhancements.  This is by
    far the best method of determining the worth of your programme and  can
    be a powerful marketing tool later.

    THE MANUAL

    Lets  not  forget the manual.  The biggest single criticism of software
    is its documentation.  Design your manual so that a child could pick it
    up  and learn how to run your programme.  Its a good idea to start your
    manual with a tutorial and have all of the relevant reference  sections
    follow that.

    DETERMINING YOUR PRICE

    This  is  very  difficult to get right first time but as a general rule
    you should look around at other programmes in your market place and see
    how  much  they  cost and adjust the price of yours taking into account
    the features of the different programmes.


    MARKETING

    You can have geese that lay golden eggs, but if you don't know  how  to
    communicate the benefits of owning one you may as well have NOTHING.

    If your programme is designed well and it does the job that your market
    place needs your marketing will be easy, having said that marketing  is
    the hardest job in the world and bad marketing has been the downfall of
    many a good product and its company (CLIVE SINCLAIR).

    Your marketing campaign should be broken down into the following areas:

    1.  Direct Mail & Cold Calling .

    2.  Dog & Pony Show.

    3.  Advertising.

    DIRECT MAIL

    Direct Mail is a fairly inexpensive way of getting your message over to
    people  not  only  that  but  you  can  be sure that your brochures are
    getting to the people who should be seeing them.

    Your accompanying letter should be fairly brief but should include some
    reason for them to investigate the rest of the literature that you have
    enclosed.  A good idea is to make some special deal if they act  within
    a certain time better still make them a money- back-guarantee.  Include
    some of the reports that come from  your  programme  and  of  course  a
    brochure of some sort telling them Who You Are, What The Product Is and
    Why They Should Buy It.

    Follow this up with a phone call to close the sale  or  arrange  for  a
    demonstration.


    DOG AND PONY SHOW

    A  powerful arena to market your product from is the TRADE SHOW.  These
    are usually run by the industry association  linked  with  your  market
    place and all those that attend are potential buyers of your product.


    WHAT TO TAKE TO THE SHOW

    What  you  need  to  do is prepare meticulously what you want to happen
    when a person stops by your booth.  Have plenty of literature  on  hand
    (better to carry unused literature home than to run out) and product to
    sell.  If possible have a large monitor that everyone  can  see  and  a
    small P.A.  system along with other computers with regular monitors.

    HOW TO USE IT

    Prepare  a canned presentation of your programme.  It should be no more
    than 15 minutes long.  If possible have seats for people to sit on, get
    people  into  your  booth sit them down and deliver your story to them.
    Have some meaningful data in the programme and go through the functions
    of  the programme making sure that people have understood what you have
    told them at every stage of  the  presentation.   At  the  end  of  the
    demonstration  invite questions from your audience.  NEVER Repeat NEVER
    tell them the price in your demonstration, let someone ask how much  it
    is  and  if  nobody asks, ask the question yourself out loud for all to
    hear (This usually raises a laugh).  Its a good idea  to  have  a  show
    special  on  the  price.  Let them know the retail price first and then
    tell them the special offer you have and emphasize that it only applies
    to the show.

    Its  a  good  idea  to  load your programme into ramdisk to make it run
    quicker (this is not to give the impression that your  programme  works
    faster  than  it  really  does but to keep their attention.  At a trade
    show all of the vendors are trying to attract the  attention  of  those
    attending  so you can bet there will be lots of distractions) If people
    ask questions in the middle of your presentation  tell  them  you  will
    deal with questions at the end of the demonstration and then at the end
    of the demonstration if no one asks a question you can turn  to  person
    who interrupted you and ask them what their question was.

    Finally  let  people  know that you will be available for more detailed
    one on one demonstrations.  Right after the presentation is over.


    ADVERTISING

    Advertising in trade journals is the only real option you have  and  is
    often  very  expensive.   So  your  advertising pounds need to be spent
    wisely.  I would start with no more than a third of a page.

    Don't clutter your adds with every single  feature  of  your  programme
    rather  look at the add as an opportunity to portray the image you want
    people to have of your programme and your company.  Your  product  will
    probably  be  above the price level were people just send you the money
    and receive the package in the mail.  Certainly  you  want  to  have  a
    response  mechanism  in there so that the people write or telephone you
    for more information.

    Have your literature ready to send to people who respond to  your  add,
    there's  nothing  more  infuriating than requesting information about a
    product you have seen in a magazine and  having  to  wait  a  month  to
    receive  it.   If your prospect has to wait any length of time for your
    literature he may well have forgotten about when it  comes  and  wonder
    what it is or worst still in the mean time he has gone out and bought a
    competitors product.

    If the trade association affiliated with your  market  place  dish  out
    awards  each  year  to  there  members  and  one  of them is using your
    product, run an add congratulating him  or  them  and  make  plenty  of
    reference to the fact that they are using your product.

    SUMMARY

    This  is  by  no  means the only way to achieve success in the vertical
    market place because as we all know there is more than one way to  skin
    a cat.  But what we have discussed will work if its done properly.

    Remember  determine  your  market  (make  sure  it exists), design your
    product well and get your marketing efforts well organized and you will
    undoubtedly have success.  Good Luck