Marketing to small businesses

SUMMARY: In the consumer marketing world everyone from Google to 'American Idol' has tested a desktop application such as a downloadable toolbar. But, can it work for B-to-B?

The answer: absolutely yes, if Staples' results are any indication.

Here's MarketingSherpa's Case Study, including a little Staples data, plus real-life data from other, more typical marketers: read the complete case study

SUMMARY: You've probably heard the statistics: 65% of America's small business owners are online. However, marketers hoping to reach them should be aware that this target audience's Web usage patterns are different from those of typical businesspeople at larger companies.

Terri Lonier, President of Working Solo who advises Fortune 500 firms on how to reach small biz, says, "Small business owners are not browsers. While they look at the Web as a communication... read the complete article

SUMMARY: "While a majority of small business owners say generating and retaining customers is the toughest marketing challenge they face, more than half of them do not use outside support for their marketing." "Nearly two�]thirds (62%) of small business owners say they use only internal resources to assist in their marketing efforts, while nearly 3 in 5 (59.1%) small business owners say generating new customers or retaining current customers is the toughest marketing challenge they face." "Interestingly, 26%... view the complete research record

SUMMARY: Last week, we highlighted several tactics that marketers have used to reach the SMB market. This week, we offer an exclusive look at new data on marketing to an SMB audience.

Bredin Business Information recently surveyed SMBs and enterprise marketers targeting the SMB audience about marketing preferences and tactics. We’ve underscored five insights from the data, including:
o The emphasis of enterprise SMB marketing efforts
o Which channels SMBs prefer
o Major SMB pain points
o Messages that resonate with the SMB audience read the complete interview

SUMMARY: Ever since Web-based accounting service Intacct.com added live chat to their site, they've found it's more popular with visitors than their toll-free phone number. Carol Manning, VP Marketing says, "They can use the old-fashioned telephone if they want to, but absolutely more people use our live help button on the site than call us." Manning ascribes this proclivity to choose live chat over phone to both ease-of-use and marketplace psychographics.

Manning says, "It's just... read the complete article

Input on McAfee from Sherpa reader George Junginger, "From a marketing communications standpoint the site is poor. No one can tell what they are buying, how it works, what they've installed. And then if you update your files, you just get a message that you are being updated, but nothing else ever happens.

I think they had a reasonably nice product and a great idea. Then they started throwing all kinds of add ons to... read the complete blog post