When you’re meeting someone for the first time, how often do you ask, “What do you do?”
It’s a popular first question because someone’s profession isn’t just a title, it’s a part of their identity and reveals a great deal about them. Finding out what someone does for a living can jumpstart a conversation and quickly lead to a deeper connection.
What if you could leverage that same shortcut to meeting and nurturing a brand-loyal relationship with your best customers?
With Professions Verification, you can.
Bring Highly Aligned Professionals Into Your Brand
Most of us spend a lot of time at our jobs and enjoy being rewarded for our work by our employers. But it also feels good to be recognized by brands—particularly the ones whose products we use professionally.
Professions Verification is a type of identity marketing that helps you to win customers whose professions align with your brand by rewarding them with a gated offer. You create a special deal for a target group of professionals, and then digitally verify their eligibility when they redeem it. It’s a form of personalization that converts prospects into customers by showing high regard for their professional identity.
Many brands are already doing a version of this with pro deals, such as when an athletic apparel company provides exclusive discounts to fitness instructors. The difference is that with Professions Verification, you digitally confirm a customer’s professional status, which prevents fraud and gives you first-party data you can use to re-engage the customer and nurture their loyalty.
Acquire an Entire Network of Brand Enthusiasts
Marketing to consumers based on their employment is highly effective, not just because it rewards them for their professional identity, but also because it taps into the kinship we feel with our colleagues. Even if we don’t know them personally, we have many experiences, interests, and affiliations in common.
When customers receive a special offer because of the work they do, they instinctively want to share it throughout their professional networks. This raises brand awareness and leads to incredible word of mouth among the people you most want using and touting your products.
How Professions Verification Works
As a marketing strategy, Professions Verification works because your exclusive offer makes customers feel honored for their work.
As a marketing tactic, it works because verifying their eligibility prevents discount abuse and makes your offer even more appealing because customers know it’s truly just for them.
Broadly speaking, Professions Verification enables you to engage two types of customers: licensed professionals and industry workers.
When you target licensed professionals, you choose from one or multiple categories of workers. For example, if your company provides building supplies, you might want to create a special offer for electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians. Professions Verification confirms that everyone who redeems your offer is a licensed member of these professions.
When you target industry workers, you make your offer available to everyone who works in a chosen industry (such as construction), regardless of their role. This would include occupations like office administrators, HR staff, accountants, and more. In this case, Professions Verification confirms eligibility for your offer by verifying that your customers are in fact employed by a construction company.
In both cases, digital verification is a seamless step in your online purchase.
As a marketing strategy, Professions Verification works because your exclusive offer makes customers feel honored for their work.
As a marketing tactic, it works because verifying their eligibility prevents discount abuse and makes your offer even more appealing because customers know it’s truly just for them.
Broadly speaking, Professions Verification enables you to engage two types of customers: licensed professionals and industry workers.
When you target licensed professionals, you choose from one or multiple categories of workers. For example, if your company provides building supplies, you might want to create a special offer for electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians. Professions Verification confirms that everyone who redeems your offer is a licensed member of these professions.
When you target industry workers, you make your offer available to everyone who works in a chosen industry (such as construction), regardless of their role. This would include occupations like office administrators, HR staff, accountants, and more. In this case, Professions Verification confirms eligibility for your offer by verifying that your customers are in fact employed by a construction company.
In both cases, digital verification is a seamless step in your online purchase.
Endless Marketing Potential
Professions Verification gives you incredible opportunities to reach new audiences. Anyone who uses your products on a regular basis can be easily won with an exclusive offer that shows how much you value them.
For example, a brand that sells a fitness watch could target athletic trainers, physical therapists, or coaches, who would then recommend the product to their clients as a way to track their progress. Or a food delivery service might foster influencers among licensed nutritionists who create meal plans and would recommend your service to their clients as a way for them to easily access high quality food.
When you use SheerID’s Verification Platform to verify customers, you can market to 95 million US workers in more than 70 industries.
Endless Marketing Potential
Professions Verification gives you incredible opportunities to reach new audiences. Anyone who uses your products on a regular basis can be easily won with an exclusive offer that shows how much you value them.
For example, a brand that sells a fitness watch could target athletic trainers, physical therapists, or coaches, who would then recommend the product to their clients as a way to track their progress. Or a food delivery service might foster influencers among licensed nutritionists who create meal plans and would recommend your service to their clients as a way for them to easily access high quality food.
When you use SheerID’s Identity Marketing Platform to verify customers, you can market to 95 million US workers in more than 70 industries.
Tips for Creating a Marketing Strategy for Professional Segments
Consider How Your Customers Use Your Products
When identifying groups to engage, think about the direct and indirect relationships you have with your audience.
Direct relationships involve people in professions that directly use or recommend your products, in the way that salon owners use hair care products or interior designers buy furniture. Indirect relationships involve people who are in specific jobs that would greatly benefit from your products, such as retail or warehouse workers who value comfortable shoes.
Decide the Breadth of Your Program
With Professions Verification, you can develop a program that’s “exclusive” or “inclusive,” or both.
For example, if you sell hardware and building supplies, targeting a licensed profession like building contractors allows you to focus on an exclusive group of high-value influencers. Giving them a generous offer can establish you as their go-to brand.
But those same products might also appeal to all people working in construction. Providing a special offer for anyone who works in that industry is a great way to acquire large groups of customers and generate word of mouth that can trigger exponential growth.
Think Outside the Box
You can also reach new customers by creating special offers that reward workers on the frontlines of the pandemic. Doctors, nurses, and first responders are an obvious choice, but you could also recognize delivery people and grocery store workers who are putting themselves at risk to keep our communities functioning.
For example, when the pandemic hit, Purple extended its military discount to teachers, healthcare professionals, and truck drivers. And Rothy’s expanded its teacher discount to include a range of medical workers.
Making these employees feel special not only brings you new customers, it generates tremendous brand awareness and goodwill.
3 Steps to Winning Professionals Who Align with Your Brand
- Pick an occupation/industry and create an offer for prospects who work in it. Brands like P.volve, Headspace, and CheapCaribbean are successfully engaging groups like nurses, doctors, and teachers.
- Verify their eligibility. SheerID provides instant digital confirmation of licensing status and employment verification for industry workers, with document review as a backup.
- Collect first-party data to re-engage and nurture. Customers who like your offer will happily opt-in to redeem it, giving you data you can use to nurture their loyalty and turn them into brand influencers.
You can launch an identity marketing program with Professions Verification in one day and see results immediately. Watch our product demo video to see how identity marketing drives customer acquisition and loyalty.
Watch the Video: How Identity Marketing Drives Customer Acquisition and Loyalty
