Selling to Small Businesses

Neat visual case study about American Express OPEN’s social media approach at the OPEN Forum – the following presentation by VizEdu does a nice job capturing it:  The idea is to provide information and strike up a conversation with small business owners, on a special conversational site that American Express OPEN has set up (separate and apart [...]

Kinko’s, acquired by FedEx a few years back, was rebranded as FedEx Office in 2008.  As a media backgrounder points out, the name is a play on the idea of FedEx Office being the Back Office for America’s Small Businesses. It’s kind of a bland name.  Kinko’s was such a … distinctive …. name that you didn’t [...]

Do you know the four information preferences of B2B decision-makers? If you don’t, you should.  Bryan Eisenberg writes in an article at ClickZ that business decision-makers fall into one of four preference categories: methodical, spontaneous, humanistic or competitive.  Most people favor one of these decision-making styles.  Depending on the style of decision maker you are trying to reach, [...]

Jennifer Laycock, Editor of Search Engine Guide, explains how they are marketing an upcoming conference using a homemade video on YouTube.  The video cost them just $148.  It took 18 hours of time (divided among 3 people) to create.  She writes: It’s a short video, just a minute and a half, but it sums up the point of our [...]

Entrepreneurship keeps attracting younger and younger people — including “millennials,” i.e., those twenty-somethings and teens born since 1980. Since entrepreneurs are consumers first and business owners second, you have to understand their thinking as consumers. A recent article in Advertising Age offers a fascinating glimpse into millennials’ thinking and debunks certain assumptions we may make [...]

Don’t forget to give holiday thanks to your business customers and partners.  You still have time, for instance, to order greeting cards with your company name embossed or a personal greeting.  You want something that looks professional, is business appropriate, and says that you remember those who count. CardsDirect has a great selection that you [...]