“We should target healthcare.” I’ve heard versions of that statement throughout my consulting career. It sounds like a strategy, but it leaves the hardest questions unanswered. Which part of healthcare? Who is buying? What problem is urgent enough to fund? An industry gives marketing a broad direction. A specific use case gives sales a conversation worth having.
Consider clinical trials. Even that needs narrowing: are we helping sponsors identify eligible patients, accelerate trial-site activation, or improve trial data quality? Each problem involves different buyers, workflows, and measures of success. Choosing one forces product marketing to understand where delays occur, who feels the consequences, and what the product can realistically improve. That understanding produces more useful messaging than broad promises to “transform healthcare.”
Before investing in an industry campaign, I would examine how customers solve the problem today—and why they might prefer to keep doing it that way. Their current approach may be familiar, already paid for, and embedded in established workflows. Switching brings costs, disruption, and risk. Does our approach offer enough improvement to justify that effort? Is the pain significant enough to attract budget, and is there an accountable buyer motivated to act? A problem can be real without being a spending priority.
The choice also sharpens execution. Customer research becomes more focused. Content addresses specific questions. Demos show a recognizable workflow. Sales enablement explains the stakeholders, objections, and evidence needed to advance the deal. Marketing can then judge whether it is attracting buyers with that problem, rather than celebrating traffic from anyone in the industry.
The first use case should also create room to grow. Look for opportunities to reuse customer relationships, integrations, and operational knowledge in adjacent workflows. That gives the company a credible way to expand its industry presence.
My starting question for industry marketing: What specific problem can we solve credibly—and turn into a repeatable sale?
Why Industry Marketing Gets Attention but Fails to Win Business
About me: I believe that the Achilles heel for most software companies is a lack of good execution in areas that drive growth/generate value – product marketing, M&A integration, revenue operations and demand generation. So, I started a focused consulting practice to help SaaS and enterprise software clients address their issues in these areas. The blog posts are based on my client engagements, as well as senior leadership roles in these areas. My bio is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/applicationsmarketing/
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