The marketing madmen understand that a security integratoris not to be confused with a security dealer. When we first got started in the security industry we often got the proverbial slap on the wrist for referring to an integrator’s business as a security dealer. But after more than four years of dedicating our agency to the security industry, we’re proud to say we no longer get slapped for saying the wrong things.

In our experience, all security integrators ask for similar things when it comes to marketing their companies. Some of the assignments we help integrators with are:

• developing a plan to penetrate a new vertical, such as healthcare, critical infrastructure, education, banking, etc.
• helping to cross-pollinate additional services that their existing customers may not know they offered.  For example, how many times have you been coming or going for a job to see a competitor that offers the exact same service as you?
• helping integrators understand who they are and what makes them unique.

Here are some marketing nuggets for security integrators.

Let’s kick it off with your USP— your unique selling proposition. Yes, we know that your business is primarily word of mouth, your customer service is stellar, and you’ve probably been in business for a long time. Blah, blah, blah. Your competitors are likely saying the same thing.

What works is catering your USP toward whatever vertical you are trying to tackle. Position the perception of your company as the doctor within that vertical. Focus on a message stating you know their security challenges better than they do and you have the absolute solution for them because of the depth of your experience. Then talk about the rest of the blah, blah, blah.

Next, think about content marketing. After you’ve figured out who you are and what makes you special you need to create content that speaks to your audience. If you’re going after the healthcare industry don’t just send out a direct mailer talking about price and how many years of experience you have, but rather create content that talks the talk and walks the walk. Create a captivating headline such as “A hazardous emergency is about to happen within your medical facility! Are you prepared to protect the hundreds/thousands of visitors at your location? Do you even have a strategy?” Then list all of the services that are specific to healthcare and why they’re important. Make sure there is content on your website that is geared toward each vertical you focus on, including at least one white paper or case study. This will help to resonate with end users because they can relate to other end users who face the same challenges they do. A tip that is often overlooked is to make your website visitor give you their name, email address, and phone number in order to download the white paper. Why? Because that turns into a lead — and it works.

It is important to create a monthly e-newsletter to send to existing clients. You’ll want to keep your e-newsletter content light, but informative. We have found that by sending an email that starts with a paragraph or two with a case study relative to the vertical, a featured product and bullet list of graphics and quick descriptions of additional services helps to generate upsells to existing customers by inbound leads for additional products/services and helps create RMR opportunities.

 Lastly — only because we’ve run out of space — is remarketing. Remarketing is not picking up the phone to resell an existing customer; rather, it is relative to pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. You can sign up for a free account with Google to create a remarketing campaign that will allow you to embed what we like to call a parasite (really it’s a cookie) on to your visitors’ browsers. Once you have a good number of parasites embedded onto hundreds/thousands of visitors, you can create visual ads that follow that Web user around like a fatal attraction ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend. You control how often the user sees your ad and the budget. When it comes to PPC campaigns, we see more conversions come through a remarketing campaign than the actual clicks that will lead a potential customer to your website. That’s a nugget you’d better write down because it’s a valuable one.