Selling to Small Businesses

Today while researching something else, I ran across this short piece over at Banktech.com.  It has priceless advice not only for banks marketing to small businesses, but for any vendor targeting the small business sector: “…[I]n order to succeed, bankers first have to speak the language of small business. In other words, don’t give business owners a choice [...]

Yesterday I listened to Marketing Sherpa’s conference call “What’s Working in IT Marketing: Latest Stats.”  It was based upon various sources of market research, including responses by over 800 companies to a very recent survey.  Some interesting nuggets came out of the call that I thought you might find interesting: Anne Holland, publisher of MarketingSherpa, pointed out that [...]

A large number of small business owners are in it for the lifestyle.  But lifestyle may not be what you think.  They actually work very long hours with more worries than if they were employed elsewhere.  This article (link via Wayback Machine) in the Herald Bulletin describes it: Starting your own business not for the faint [...]

According to the SBA’s Office of Advocacy: “Advocacy’s research shows that small businesses pay an average of $6,975 per employee annually to comply with federal regulations – 60% more than large businesses.” I cite this statistic here as an example of how extra paperwork, extra meetings, or extra staffing hit small businesses harder than large businesses.  The same goes [...]

Demographics can be a tricky thing. On the one hand, demographics are a time-honored way of defining and segmenting purchaser groups.  On the other hand, trying to predict buying behaviors based on demographics alone can be dangerous, if the thinking behind them is overly-broad.   This article from USA Today, offers a case in point.  The article [...]

The largest 100 companies in the United States don’t do a very good job responding to customers online, as a general rule. Only 35% of the largest companies achieved a rating of good or excellent in the way they treat customers online.  The others fall down in a number of different areas: Almost half of the [...]