Small to medium enterprises have the potential to boost a country’s economic power significantly. Through vast employment opportunities and stable growth, countries like Germany have seen this sector sustain their economic growth throughout the global recession, and the world is waking up to this winning formula, as can be seen with President Obama’s move to boost SME’s with his ‘middle-out’ economic agenda.

There are certain obstacles facing businesses today and challenges faced by many SME’s materialize at two key points in the business cycle. The first is at start-up, that crucial time when rapport with clients and partners is established and the groundwork for future expansion is laid. The second key point is when the business starts looking to expand; a time when marketing information and research is crucial in guiding the flow of expenditure and focus of new projects. These challenges can, however, be managed and converted into genuine success with the help of the right email service provider (ESP), as ESP’s enable integrated B2C and B2B marketing.

What are the three key elements SME’s need for effective start-up and growth?

Networking

It goes without saying that any business, whether small or corporate, relies heavily on networking with both consumers and industry partners-and leaders. Being able to connect and engage with those outside your business allows you to gain valuable insights and fresh perspectives that are often not available when you’re not connected on a real-time basis with those outside your immediate working environment.

Efficient Communications

Being able to effectively communicate with those outside of your business might seem like a no-brainer, but a surprising amount of start-ups and businesses spend far too little time considering the effect of their communications. Being able to project the image of your business through well-written and precisely-executed communications campaigns gives you an edge when compared to others. This exercise is especially important in the time before you decide to take your operations to the next level as it will create a greater awareness of what you have to offer and what you intend on building on.

Communications also form and integral part of a SME’s ethical image, projected through its interactions with those outside the company.

Statistics / Research

Although important throughout the life-cycle of a business; being able to grow your start-up from small to medium and so forth relies heavily on targeted operations which, in turn, rely on having the right information at the right time. The marketing cycle, especially in the digital arena, can change very quickly and the whims of consumers must be measured on a regular basis. If  you’re able to do this effectively then not only will you be able  send out targeted marketing material, but you will also be able to monitor the success of your campaigns afterwards.

Looking at the key factors in SME’s development, what can the right ESP do to effectively manage these challenges?

Building a Mailing List

A good ESP will enable you to collect contact details of both potential clients and partners in business through integrated marketing material that draws opt-in subscriptions and real-time responses to material sent out. As you continue to collect contacts, your ESP, which almost becomes your digital partner, continues to diversify and build your contacts, constantly keeping your mailing list active and up to date. Mailing list construction is integral in digital networking and ensures that you‘re never out of touch with your support base.

Structured Communications

Digital marketing enables businesses to reach a vast audience, but there is a danger in this in that you could easily be regarded as spamming your audience or even worse, sending out standardized, impersonal communications. Think about all those newsletters and text messages you receive that make you look and feel like just another number on a list. The help of an ESP, however, can ensure that your communications are both targeted to appeal to the right audience while containing all the information necessary for them to convert to using your product or service.

Statistics for Growth

Once you’ve established a valuable working relationship with your consumers and partners you’re left with the daunting, daily task of managing these relationships. Staying up to speed on the latest external developments is challenging enough, but keeping tabs on the wants and needs of those you’ve already built a relationship with can be even more high maintenance. Garnering statistics, metrics and pulling company-wide information and collecting it in one place makes it easy for businesses to judge the effectiveness of their marketing operations. The services of the right digital partner, however, will help manage commercial relationships, leaving businesses free to build new relationships as time goes by and expand in the process.

Small to Medium businesses are perfectly positioned for taking advantage of the digital marketing boom. Now, more than ever, there are opportunities for expansion unlike before; but although the environment for new and growing businesses has become very conducive to expansion, the right partner in digital marketing is needed to ensure sustainable growth through external engagement.

The mood among the nation's small business owners is picking up.

After the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index plunged 28 points to -11 in November 2012, the most pessimistic level in two years, the most recent index indicated small business owners are feeling more optimistic: The index improved 20 points to +9 for the first quarter of 2013. The survey, conducted Jan. 7-11, signifies increased optimism among business owners about their overall financial situation for the next 12 months. Seventy-one percent of business owners expect the number of jobs at their companies to remain the same during this time, and 17 percent expect to add jobs in the next year, too.

What's the prognosis for your business over the next 12 months? Are you feeling less gloomy about its future, as well? Every small business owner contends with issues surrounding market size, competition and demand, but the internal factors that focus on operations, strategy and leadership are within your control. Smart small business owners know that attention to these areas keep them out of the red:

Price for Profitability

Identifying your profitable price point is key to keeping business in the black. If you find you need to raise your prices, there are several approaches you may take. Roy Rasmussen, author of "Cloud Computing Simplified for Small Businesses," recommends distinguishing yourself from your competition by offering an additional value or bonus that justifies a higher price. Investigate introducing an additional product or service line that you can sell to your customers for repeat business, and consider switching your target market to include a higher-income demographic, such as professionals in a niche market. Depending on the business you're in, a few repeat customers or clients with an American Express Gold card in their wallets can be just the boost you need to maintain a profit.

Staff for Efficiency

Hire people who are passionate about the industry you're in and believe in the product or service you provide. Consider part-time employees and freelancers, as well – according to a recent Elance survey, small businesses are shifting to hiring part-time employees and contracting projects out for specific skill sets. By being open to using these types of employees, small business owners not only save money on full-time salaries and benefit packages, but they won't have to lay off full-time employees should business slow down. The number of full-time employees who quit and turn to freelance will triple in 2013, and that leaves small business owners with many qualified, and oftentimes less expensive, options for staffing.

Step Up the Tech

To be a smart and effective small business owner, you and your team need to step up the technology game. We're not talking exclusively about posting Facebook updates or Twitpics; we're referring to utilizing advanced technologies and software to maximize their potential and increase income for your business. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recommends investing in select technology services such as:

Accounting software. Accounting software enables you to see your profits and losses at a glance and can help you design and maintain a budget for your business.

Planning software or tools. There are many online planning systems that help you keep your calendar organized. Find a system that meets your business needs and stick with it.

Time-tracking software. A time-tracking program helps determine what tasks result in a profit and what tasks do not, and therefore can be eliminated, outsourced or improved. For software that requires a fee, ask for a free trial first to make sure it’s right for you.

In addition, there are a variety of data tracking systems for people who don't like Microsoft Excel or whose business has outgrown spreadsheets. It may be time to investigate if one can help you save money and time.

Expand Your Focus

Don’t preach to the choir; there is no need to continuously focus your marketing efforts on those who are already invested in your brand. Find new fans. While it is important to remain loyal to your customers, do not disregard the importance on focusing on those who haven’t experienced your brand. Jason Rzepka, vice president of public affairs at MTV, told tedxpresidio.org, “If you always target the converted user, you're not reaching the audience that you could if only you thought more broadly.”

Think Outside the (American) Box

In today’s global economy, small to midsize businesses are encouraged to research and engage in foreign markets. The middle class is emerging strongly in developing nations, with many looking to do business with Americans. According to the SBA, nearly 96 percent of the world's consumers live outside the USA and two-thirds of the world’s purchasing power is in foreign countries. When considering a global business, Carolita Oliveros, an attorney who specializes in international business, told indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com, “One of the first steps in preparing your business for foreign markets is to assure the protection of your intellectual property, and it begins in the planning process… establish your business in the form of an LLC or a corporation and make sure to file for trade names and patents.” She also suggests businesses develop a business plan that includes some consideration to all aspects of exporting their goods or service across international borders.

Among these, maybe the least surprising is a postage hike. According to Pitney Bowes Small Business, a price increase on postal rates of 2.75 percent went into effect on Jan. 27. If you rely on postage as an integral part of your business or use postage for marketing purposes, you will see price increases.

Small business owners can be more creative in their use of postal services to help offset the increase. Others may finally switch their print-mailed campaigns efforts to email marketing campaigns. In any case, these new increases can run into thousands of dollars for high-volume shippers.

There are three important things small business owners need to know about the 2013 postage increase:

* Low-cost shipping solutions are being eliminated.

* Retail shipping rates are rising an average of 5-10 percent.

* The Intelligent Mail barcode will give business owners and customers more power when it comes to tracking their items.

Here are details of the 2013 USPS postage increase:

New single-piece First-Class Mail pricing includes:

Postcards: 1-cent increase to 33 cents.

Letters (1 ounce or less): 1-cent increase to 46 cents.

Letters over 1 ounce: unchanged at 20 cents per ounce.

Letters for international destinations (1 ounce or less): $1.10.

New domestic retail pricing for Priority Mail Flat Rate products include:

Small box — $5.80

Medium box — $12.35

Large box — $16.85

Large APO/FPO box — $14.85

Regular envelope — $5.60

Legal envelope — $5.75

Padded envelope — $5.95

The good news? The "Forever" stamps offered by the USPS continue to be true to their word. A one-ounce letter mailed using a Forever stamp can be used anytime in the future regardless of postal price adjustments. However, newly purchased Forever domestic stamps will have a 1-cent increase to 46 cents. An international Forever stamp that allows for world-wide mail will now cost $1.10.

Why the increase?

Each year, the USPS is allowed to raise rates if the proposed rate increase falls within the rate of inflation. What does this mean for small business owners? If small businesses export a lot of shipping, especially standard mail that is less than a pound, owners will be looking at overall price increases that could negatively impact profit margins or customer satisfaction if not properly handled.

What can small businesses do now to mitigate the impact?

1. Incur your shipping and mailing in-house

Postage meters are one of the most pragmatic and effective steps you can take to streamline your mailing efforts. The built-in postage scale ensures accurate weighing, and the meter’s printer quickly prints proper postage and postmark details on  envelopes or eliminating trips to the post office. Postage meters can receive automatic updates from the USPS, meaning most small business postage meters will never need to adjust their internal rates to USPS standards. All postage meters are licensed and registered with the USPS so they are leased rather than purchased.

2. Embrace Intelligent Mail barcodes

Intelligent Mail barcodes increase the ability to track individual mail pieces and provide business owners and customers with greater visibility into the mail stream. Intelligent Mail barcodes effectively incorporate the routing zip code and tracks delivery. These barcodes improve deliverability and overall efficiency. This improvement helps customers feel that they, along with the USPS, have accountability over individual mail pieces.

3. Purge your contact list of incorrect information

The correlation of databases to Intelligent Mail barcodes enables small businesses to track back data such as incorrect addresses to the original source.  By ridding your database of wrong addresses, you will be using your mail system more efficiently while eliminating wasted postage costs.

4. Explore new formats

When postage is essential to send materials to customers, the USPS Express and Priority mail options can save significant postage funds. These options have commercial base discounts – 36 percent and 19 percent savings, respectively.

Small businesses that use post mailing for promotional and marketing reasons may want to shift from mass mailing to more homed-in, targeted email marketing. The segment is growing, even if people's inboxes are getting overrun. Email has nearly three times as many user accounts as Facebook and Twitter combined – 2.9 billion – and that was in 2012, as reported in BtoBonline.com.

Through email marketing systems, business owners get direct feedback on the effectiveness of their campaigns. Campaign Monitor and other email marketing systems provide insightful analytics in real-time reports. These tools show the sender who opened it, what they were interested in, who they sent it to and what links were clicked. These findings can help business owners refine their email campaigns and target ideal engagement.

With these tips, it’s important for small business owners to integrate the postage increase into their current pricing. Revisit current product pricing to mitigate any surprises that could show up months down the road.

Many businesses will put this added cost onto customer shipping fees. This may seem like the most logical solution to keep budgets intact, but it’s important to analyze the situation strategically and think long-term. Some small businesses may want to absorb that cost and see what impact it has on customer service before inflating prices on customer-based costs such as shipping.

A major part of online marketing is making sure that your website shows up in search engine results. For the small business owner on a budget, hiring a consultant to handle the search engine optimization (SEO) for their business website can sometimes be expensive.  There are definite benefits to having a specialist manage your website.  But it is always good to know these basic elements of SEO, whether you plan to do them yourself or just want to understand what your consultant is working on.

Titles Count

The page title is what shows up in the results pages when someone performs a search, so it's important to have a page title that very accurately reflects what the page is about. It is also important to have unique page titles for each page on your site and the more descriptive the better. Some of the elements you may want to include in your page titles are the name of your website, name of your business, maybe some description of your products or services and your location if it is a local business. On the technical side of things, make sure to use title tags to identify your page title.

Make Site Navigation Easy

The easier your site is to navigate the better able search engines are to evaluate the most important content.  While Google's search engine treats each page individually for search results, it also takes into account the pages context within the website.

Breadcrumbs

Using "breadcrumbs" is a good way to make things easier for your visitors. Breadcrumbs are a series of the links the visitor has followed to get from the home page to the current page.  This is what breadcrumbs look like:

Provide Two Sitemaps

A sitemaps is a page that shows all of the pages in your site organized by their hierarchy. For site visitors this is a good way to get a quick bird's eye view of your website without having to click through all the navigation links. Search engines like XML sitemaps, but humans like good old HTML sitemaps that are easy on the eyes and easy to follow. From a technical standpoint, there are free tools to create both types of sitemaps.

Promote Your Website

With the latest changes to Google's search algorithms it is more important than ever to promote carefully. You do want to get your website noticed, but you definitely want to avoid anything Google may see as extreme, which it views very negatively.

Put your URL on all your promotional materials, including your business cards. Create an RSS feed so people can keep up with your new content easily. Get to know sites related to your topic and approach them about linking to each other's sites. Inbound links, also known as backlinks or incoming links are a great way to get SEO love. Running display ads can help both for the clicks they can attract as well as by increasing how often people search for your business by name.   Be judicious in who you get to link to you, though, because unrelated links will actually hurt you.

Use Free Webmaster Tools

All of the major search engines provide free webmaster tools that are designed to make it easier for them to gather the information about your site to make their search results better. Google Analytics and Website Optimizer are two basic tools every webmaster should use. If you use Wordpress there are also free SEO plugins that make it much easier to optimize pages with very little effort.

Provide Great Content

We have saved the best for last, because great content has the biggest impact on your websites long-term SEO. If you get all the other things right and have lousy content, you may get site visitors, but they won't come back. Content SEO is a subject all its own, but a great start is to have well written content that is extremely relevant to your products and/or services and keep adding new content frequently. We have touched on frequency in other articles and it bears repeating here. One great article won't cut it. When it comes to content you must be consistent and persistent to get good long-term results.

A new survey based on data from 300 small and midsized businesses in the third quarter of 2012 was recently published by BIA/Kelsey, a distinguished local-media research firm. One of the top findings of the survey was that 40 percent of these businesses are planning to increase their budgets for digital marketing sometime in the next year. While 40 percent is not a majority, only 3.7 percent said they planned to decrease their budgets for online advertising. In the survey, 48 percent of business owners said they would maintain the same budgets, and 8.3 percent were not sure if their budgets would go up, go down or remain the same.

One of the major reasons why many small businesses are increasing spending for online advertising is that there is a wide variety of legitimate online channels through which to market every type of company. Most businesses claimed that their budgets for online marketing would be spread across multiple channels. Also helping the trend is the availability of assistance from digital agencies that specialize in online display for small business, such as Vantage Local.

Business owners have slowly begun to understand that their potential customers are not available through a single website. The customer bases of most small businesses are spread through a variety of channels, and missing one of them could make a big difference in how many new customers are acquired in the coming year. In 2007, small businesses engaged in digital marketing through an average of three channels, but according to the new survey, the average channels being used per business was 5.8. This means that the number of online channels used for advertising by the average small business has nearly doubled in the past five years.

The online channel rated as the favorite among the small businesses surveyed is Facebook. Over 52 percent of businesses used Facebook for promotional purposes, which puts it above most other forms of marketing, such as the following:

• Newspaper advertising – 31 percent
• Community sponsorship – 27 percent
• Email marketing – 25 percent

The slowest sector in small-business advertising is mobile marketing. Although mobile marketing is becoming a trend, only one in five small businesses in the survey had any type of mobile marketing strategy in place, and about one-third of respondents had never heard of mobile marketing.

Home Data Protection | Cloud Storage for Personal Data

Protect important personal and digital assets on an offsite public cloud such as Amazon Web Services and Google. Using various types of cloud storage platforms also keeps your information organized and easily accessible. Digital and technology blog Lifehacker.com recommends multiple free storage accounts for syncing files, storing music and backing up information.

For optimal online storage and security, Lifehacker suggests exploring the following cloud options:

• SugarSync: Utilize extensive features and 5GB of free storage for syncing media and hard drive files. SugarSync is also a robust digital location for photo storage as well as instant and automatic backup storage.
• Amazon CloudDrive: Access music from anywhere by storing files on Amazon Cloud Player. Amazon CloudDrive offers 5GB of secure and easily recoverable storage for free or a 20GB album for a low price.
• IDrive: Access files remotely with IDrive's smartphone app feature. You can also rely on secure Windows and Mac automatic backup, social media integration and cutting-edge visual sharing.
• Dropbox: Sync and access files stored on an array of computers and mobile devices through a Dropbox. Dropbox provides file accessibility with or without an Internet connection and sharable features for projects and documents.

Data Disaster Prevention

You may not be too concerned about data storage and protection until it's too late. It's easy to dismiss the idea of a stolen laptop or forgotten tablet until it's happened to you. Losing a notebook computer or tablet is devastating enough; but to lose personal data, such as invaluable documents and irreplaceable photos can be incomprehensible.

According to TheNextWeb.com, you can prevent a lost-data disaster by taking the following precautionary steps:

• Save Computer Details: Use an online storage program to protect your data by creating an emergency folder and generating a system report. Saving a system report to a cloud storage platform, such as Dropbox, provides details that will help your computer be identified if it goes missing.
• Make Hard Copies: Transfer information into a physical document and file docs in an organized system. File copies in a safe location besides your home.
• Install Prey or Undercover: Install the tracking software Prey or Undercover so that if your notebook or tablet ends up in the wrong hands, you can retrieve it. Each of these services provide state-of-the-art features such as webcam activation and police support.
• Back-Up Archives: Store your data, information and archives using a cloud computing solution or reliable backup tools. TechRepublic.com emphasizes that backing up "data to an external drive and to rotate that drive offsite" is critical. Keep your data safe with backup tools Acronis Backup and Restore (with Universal Restore) or Symantec Backup Exec.

Document Protection & Organization at Home

From insurance policies and loan papers to tax information and death certificates, a multitude of documents are most likely lying around your home in a folder someplace. Are your valuables and important documents disaster-proof? Are personal records and information protected from an unexpected fire or natural disaster? Imagine the devastation of losing irreplaceable mementos and essential documents, such as family social security cards, birth certificates and medical records. It's not good imagery.

Prevent catastrophic loss and protect your family assets with the following tips:

• Lock Valuables in a Safe: Protect valuables and private information with a fire and theft protection safe. Family heirlooms, expensive jewelry and invaluable possessions should also be safely stored in a safe with a lock.
• Duplicate Copies: Make copies of important documents. (e.g. social security cards, birth certificates, passports, insurance policies, medical records, wills, trust documents, birth/death certificates, titles/deeds, licenses, legal/financial papers, tax returns, and bonds/stock certificates)
• Organize Documents in a Filing System: Ensure that original documents are safely organized in a home filing system. A portable binder or filing storage are convenient devices for transporting important paperwork such as bank account information, property records and business documents.

Business Data Protection | Private, Public & Hybrid Cloud Storage

For enterprises and small businesses, the cloud has become an optimal solution for securely storing and accessing data. Private cloud computing are hosting services for a specific organization; the organization controls the infrastructure as well as the exchanged data and workloads. A public cloud, such as Amazon Web Services and Google, is governed by a third party that hosts IT resources for the public and other consumers. Hybrid clouds are hosting services that utilize both local and off-premise systems. Hybrid cloud computing combines the use of internal and external clouds for business resources, applications and operations. Resources in a cloud, such as applications, email, documents and networks, can be securely accessed from mobile devices anywhere, anytime.

Data Security

According to CloudTweaks.com, cloud storage platforms provide state-of-the-art solutions for encrypted logins, protection from unauthorized access and security control of stored information. EWeek.com reports that a comScore Microsoft study concluded: "35 percent of small and midsize businesses have experienced higher levels of security in cloud environments." Virtual clouds enhance data security, business continuity and disaster preparedness, which also ensures that an organization minimizes downtime and mitigates data disasters. Cloud platforms also run automatic software updates and security applications for maximum protection. Relying on a cloud reduces the amount of time reserved for in-house security management and execution.

Cloud Backup

The cloud is a premium and dependable digital space for backing data and confidential information. Online backup ensures that valuable business information is securely stored, easily accessible and retrievable. By storing information on a remote system, data is duplicated and files can be restored in the event of digital disaster. The NYTimes.com on Technology explains that backing up files isn't as tedious or difficult as backing up to an external hard drive, for example, "because the process has become entirely automated." The NYTimes.com suggests cloud-based companies, including Carbonite, Mozy, Backblaze and Crashplan, for a myriad of diverse backup features and industry-leading enterprise data security.

If you want to succeed, you must succeed online. Maybe going online is not the very first market you need to conquer. If you have a coffee cart, for example, your brew may be so good you might be a raging success before you even design your logo. But you have to pay attention to the online world eventually, even with a popular coffee cart, and for most of us, the online world the very first thing we think about. Why?

Online is where the conversations begin. It's where 'word of mouth' is happening on a global scale.

Getting into that conversation means putting up a website with the grabbiest graphics and the most potent message.That's the common wisdom. But here's a better idea. Ask first, 'What is my website for?'

Types of website experience

I'm not just talking platforms, like WordPress, Tumblr, Drupal, Joomla, or some fancy proprietary platform your designer is trying to sell you. I want you to think about the visitor experience. You may want a website that is basically a business card. I'd call that an information experience. You may need people to shop through catalogue and buy something - a consumer experience. You may want to share images, information or music - a sharing experience. You can build a community experience with blogs. If you say, 'oh, I just need a fancy business card that moves and stuff and has pretty colors,' you will be missing out on a lot. Community and sharing are powerful drivers. If you can get people involved and engaged, they'll come back. Wouldn't that be nice?  If your site is all about you it might not be as engaging as a site that invites the viewer in to your experience. Think bigger than 'you' and offer more than an online business card. Here are those categories again. What kind of site experience do you need to offer?

• information experience
• consumer experience
• sharing experience
• community experience

Functionality

Ok, scary word. But functionality means what kinds of bells and whistles you site will have, and how they will affect the site. Most important factor? Site load time. If you want to showcase lots of beautiful images and your site takes five seconds to load, you will lose visitors. They will bounce off impatiently. I've seen sites that are dumb as dirt become very popular because they are fast to load and to the point. Find a balance between beauty and practicality.

Desktop and Mobile

Remember that your visitors are looking at your site on all kinds of screens. I worked with a designer once who did great work, as long as it was viewed on his humongous cinema display. He wasn't interested in hearing me talk about people with 13-inch displays, or tablets or phones, who might be trying to view his masterpiece of design. How well will your site travel to different screens?

As you look over your website plans, ask these questions:

Who will this reach?

Know who your audience is. Try to understand what they want and what your site will deliver. Sounds basic, but this will make your site far more effective.

How easily will my visitors find my site?

Are you going to put up great content that draws visitors like a powerful magnet? Are you going to invest in advertising? Are you going to depend on organic search queries, and optimize your site for them? You better do something. Or else nobody's going to show up.

What should my visitors do?

People may find you online, but then what? Every website has a narrative. It may not be linear, but there is a story to tell in words, pictures and sounds. It has a first, second and third act, just like a good movie or play. Do people need to end up on your contact page or buy page? If so, how will you lead them there?  If you want your visitors to simply 'get to know more about you' that's nice, but that's all they will do. Is that enough for you? What is the call to action? Having one makes everyone happy. A call to action gives visitors a sense of mission when they visit your site. Get that right, and then move on to business cards if you need them.

Oh, and if you know about any coffee carts better than the Mud Truck in NYC's Astor Place, let me know. Always in the hunt for those.

PHOTO CREDIT: Question mark by alexanderdrachmann via Creative Commons License.

Buyer Persona © All Rights Reserved Cristian Cardenas

The sheer size of the SMB makes for a daunting task for any organization intent on marketing to the SMB segment. When you consider some Fortune 1000 or Global 2000 organizations can have in the 10’s or 100’s of thousands of companies in their customer bases, the expression of zeroing in on your target buyer can sound near impossible. It is a dilemma however that cannot be ignored. The U.S. Small business Administration estimates that the SMB segment accounts for better than 98% of all businesses in the United States.

In the previous article in this series, How To Get To Know The New SMB Buyer, I touched upon the means to get to know the SMB buyer. Marketing to the SMB segment and buyers should first start with visiting the segmentation issue a little deeper. There have been many means tried for SMB segmentation whether it is by size, type, vertical, products, solutions, and etc. To some degree, they have helped to manage the challenge of bringing a tighter focus to the SMB segment and its’ sub-market segments. Analytics of your SMB customer database is like fighting numbers with numbers – you can contain the data but without behavioral insight – you will not be able to get inside them. The call to action now is for organizations to bring more science and evolution to the challenge. Why? Because buyers in general have changed so rapidly in the last three years alone that gaining a competitive edge has become much more complex.

Getting Descriptive

Going beyond conventional methods of segmenting the SMB customer base means getting more descriptive about how SMB buyers behave and how goals drive their behaviors. This includes getting a good sense about their Buyergraphics – their attitudes, perceptions, values, information needs, and more. The attempt here is to answer some tough questions that help to bring more focus to an SMB strategy:

Who are our best customers in the SMB segments and why?

In what SMB sub-market segments are our best customers?

Who are our best prospects and in which SMB sub-market segment are they?

What are the best means of engaging our best SMB customers and best SMB prospects?

Descriptive buyer modeling helps you to get answers to these questions and gives you insight into the data as well. In the previous article I stressed the importance of buyer modeling to help get to know your SMB buyers. Modeling buyers and portraying them via buyer personas and scenarios helps you get to the first two questions mentioned. To help round out the SMB buyer picture, learning their attitudes towards your product, service, or technology and how these attitudes drive information needs help to get deeply descriptive. There are three specific buyer modeling efforts that can help shed light on the attitudes and goals driving SMB buyer behavior and help inform buyer-based marketing strategies:

Buyer Mental Models: collecting a picture of SMB buyer attitudes, perceptions, and goals that influence buying decisions can be a descriptive means for segmenting as well as buyer-based communicating. For example if your product technology is getting high marks for user-friendliness and there is strong attitudinal resistance to perceived complex technology in 3 out 5 identified sub-markets, then creating buyer-based marketing strategies around this mental model is one way of segmenting.

Buyer Content Models: identifying the information needs and goals of buyers today extends well beyond just the concept of content marketing. With the rise of SMB sub-market segments engaging not only in new technologies but forming new ecosystem, the information needs of SMB buyers are vastly different and changing rapidly. Carrying the above example further, the information needs of the 3 sub-markets may vary differently in context and how information is shared amongst both suppliers and partners. More and more, organizations will need to think context-based marketing and context-based selling as opposed to just content-based marketing. While this will apply to all types of businesses, I believe this will be especially true for the SMB markets.

Buyer Experience Models: how SMB buyers view, perceive, and expect experience is undergoing transformative gyrations. The way SMB buyers experience inbound marketing and other newer technology-based marketing and sales is certain to be different than larger enterprises. There are many more what I call Buyer Moment of Truth in SMB that are frankly invisible to marketers and sellers today. Not identifying where these moments of truth are can be a significant disadvantage in laying out both inbound and outbound marketing and sales strategies. Understanding experiences is important since they are instrumental in shaping attitudes, perceptions, and perceived values. For the examples mentioned, previous experiences with technology not yet cleared of bugs may have created entrenched resistance to both new and complex. Reshaping thinking around experience can then become an important strategy.

Modeling SMB buyers to a deeper level and around the three modeling efforts mentioned gets organizations closer to a true buyer-based marketing effort. In addition, it gives more robust ability to segment SMB by behavior and context. Buyer-based marketing can be most effective when it addresses how buyers behave and understanding the context of why they make purchase decisions.

Informed with behavioral buyergraphics that hone in on buyer behaviors and how they are influenced by mental models, information needs, and experience can be a powerful way to resonate with SMB buyers. Getting at the heart of their contextual environments, which will vary by sub-market segments, gives the insight needed to develop specific buyer-based marketing strategies that defies one-size fits all. When it comes to the dilemma of how to make sense of thousands of SMB customers and prospects, taking these steps eliminates wasteful guessing and pinpoints buyer-based marketing at the right buyer, the right sub-market, the right context, and the right time.

Next Up: Connect With SMB Buyer Through Buyer-Based Selling

Follow @TonyZambito

Related articles

• Your Top Priority Is Growing The SMB Revenue Base - Now What? (buyerology.com)
• How To Get To Know The New SMB Buyer (buyerology.com)
• How B2B Leaders Are Understanding Buyers Better With Behavioral Buyergraphics (buyerology.com)
• How To Get To Know The New SMB Buyer (blogs.imediaconnection.com)
• Grow SMB Revenues With Buyer-Based Marketing (buyerology.com)
• Use Buyer-Based Selling To Engage The New SMB Buyer (buyerology.com)
• Your Top Priority Is Growing The SMB Revenue Base - Now What? (blogs.imediaconnection.com)

©All rights Reserved Peter Schofield

This is part 2 of a series on the challenge of targeting SMB markets and how the use of buyer modeling and buyer-based marketing help organizations to grow their SMB customer base.

In the first article of this series, we visited two new realities. One, that many Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 organizations are turning a focused eye towards growing their SMB customer and revenue base. With revenue growth potential shrinking in larger strategic accounts due to budget and pricing pressures, many are dedicating attention and resources with more determination than in the past. The second reality is that they are finding a very different buyer this time around than in the past. Simply put, SMB buyers are more social, more sophisticated, more connected, and are transforming their buying behaviors at an accelerated pace. New technologies opening their world to advantages only once afforded to large enterprises.

Waking up to these new realities has set up another challenge for executive leaders. That is of how to get to know the new SMB buyer. Here’s how one sales executive put this to me recently:

“One of the things we realized is that we have got to get to know our SMB customers. If you keep in mind that we haven’t really dedicated much resource to this area, then we are lacking in knowledge per se’. We’ve got to find out what is important to them versus just giving them some generic sales pitch.”

This is a very salient point for many organizations tend to view the SMB as a whole segment in of itself. The reality is that the SMB is highly fragmented and consists of many layers of sub-market segments. Getting to know what makes SMB buyers tick is, by no means, as easy as saying this is your SMB buyer. Layer on top of this the enormous changes in buyer behavior, the invisibility of SMB buyers in their sourcing for information, and new empowering technologies makes this endeavor a higher mountain to climb. It is no wonder many executives are walking out of their meetings where SMB growth is identified as a top priority saying – now what?

Getting To Know The New SMB Buyer

The first tough challenge is realizing that viewing the SMB as a single market and that rudimentary means of segmenting by employee size and revenue figures are not going to result in the understanding needed. While vertical segmentation is of significant help, what is paramount is knowledge of how these sub-markets and buyers within behave. What are steps that executives can take to understand the new SMB buyer?

Buyer Research: This has to be a clear mission. Getting to know the new SMB buyer is going to take some level of buyer research. It is going to take the integrated approach of committing to both quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the full 360 degrees of the new SMB buyer.

Buyer Modeling: Depending on the degree of fragmentation in sub-markets, powerful buyer modeling can be an extensive exercise. However, one well-worth the upfront investment to get to know the new SMB buyer in ways that transforms efforts into an order of magnitude competitive advantage. There are several areas of modeling that by understanding them deeply, can make your organization relevant to buyers and core to their problem-solving:

Buyer Persona Modeling: What is important here is not to model the single archetypal buyer but to model the new levels of interactions buyers are having with newly formed ecosystems and networks. They may be SMB but they are growing exponentially and organically by creating new ecosystems. Buyer persona modeling represents composite archetypes based on behavioral research with a focus on identifying critical goals that drive buyer behaviors.

Buyer Scenario Modeling: To get a handle on the problems SMB buyers face and what confronts them, modeling buying scenarios can give your marketing and sales teams insight into how to be relevant. Additionally, this gives you the ability to address fragmentation and identify sub-market segments that have the best optimal scenarios to be part of the SMB buyer’s solution.

Buyer Decision Modeling: How SMB buyers are making purchase decisions today is changing so fast and by sub-markets that not monitoring this aspect of a SMB strategy can put an organization behind the curve. While looking at the buyer decision journey can be fruitful, in my qualitative research I’ve noted how the new SMB buyers are adept at more ad-hoc decision-making. Furthermore, with the rise of ecosystems and networks, collaborative efforts in making purchase decisions are not so neatly streamlined. Newer technologies are also making purchase decisions more decentralized than ever – making fragmentation on this issue even more complex.

Buyer Value Modeling: SMB buyers’ value varies widely by sub-market segments. Gaining insight and modeling how these values operate in their day-to-day world can help you to tailor offerings and communications to fit specific sub-market segments. Depending on the industry and markets, values in the SMB take on a deeper emotive texture and can be a deciding factor in purchase decisions.

Avoid Big Data Trap

With the rise of big data, there will be a tendency to try and “cut the numbers” every which way to make sense of the SMB market challenge. When dealing with 5,000 SMB accounts to 150,000 SMB accounts, the tasks of getting to know these SMB buyers at a deeper level can look downright daunting. Analytics will play an important role towards reaching understanding. I also contend and advocate that qualitative and predictive buyer modeling is essential to integrate into the mix of discovering the new SMB buyer of today. Buyer behavior within the SMB world is rapidly changing. A reasonable assumption can be made that in some SMB sub-market segments it is changing at a faster pace than that of larger organizations.

The combined use of analytics and predictive buyer modeling can yield an insightful picture into how these new behaviors translate into uncovering why buyers make purchase decisions. And, get closer to the holy grail of uncovering the reasons why they would change.

Next Up: The Importance of Buyer-Based Marketing in SMB

Follow @TonyZambito

Related articles

• Your Top Priority Is Growing The SMB Revenue Base - Now What? (buyerology.com)
• How B2B Leaders Are Understanding Buyers Better With Behavioral Buyergraphics (buyerology.com)
• The Single Buyer Model: A Dangerous Road Towards Competitive B2B Marketing (buyerology.com)
• 4 Ways the Power of Buyer Choice Will Transform Business Marketing (buyerology.com)
• Slow Death of the Funnel: Why Buyer Choice Matters to Revenue (buyerology.com)
• Predictive Buyer Modeling Is Changing the Future of B2B (buyerology.com)

Do Your Research Before You Pick Up The Phone © All Rights Reserved Kenny Madden

This is part 1 of a series on the challenge of targeting SMB markets and how the use of target buyer modeling and buyer-based marketing help organizations to grow their SMB customer base.

As we continue to come out of the deep freeze over the last few years, we are beginning to see encouraging signs of an economic recovery. However, the purse strings are still drawn tight and new patterns of buying has created an atmosphere of even more exacting pricing pressures from enterprise-wide level buyers and accounts. This means less room for revenue growth to come directly from the fabled 20-30 percent of large customers who typically have made up 70-80 percent of total revenues. This is how a VP of Sales in the software industry put it to me recently in my research:

“Here is what it looks like…we are actually selling more of our product into our larger accounts than ever before….but…over the last three years we've faced stiffer competition that has driven our pricing down. So the net-net has been that we are just holding on as best we can to these larger accounts. Another words, we are not getting significant real revenue growth from them.”

It is highly likely that this refrain is being repeated across many Fortune 1000, Global 2000, and even Inc. 500 listed companies across the globe. With revenue growth opportunities shrinking among their large accounts, senior leaders in these organizations are turning a focused eye towards the highly sought after small and mid-size business segment. For instance, in the highly compettive world of IT Products and Services, both HP and IBM made substantial investments and strategic moves in 2011 to target the SMB segment. Challenging Dell and its' low cost entry strategy for small to mid-size businesses.

A New Challenge And A New Frontier

There is good reason for Fortune 1000 or Global 2000 companies to target revenue growth from the SMB segment. It is one of the fastest growing segments and traditionally has been coming out of a recession. It also has proven to be lucrative when you consider that actual contribution margin percentages are much richer per sale when compared to large accounts. It is little surprise that senior executives have shifted at least one eye towards expanding their SMB customer base and tapping into the revenue growth potential that can exists.

While targeting or at least accounting for the SMB segment is not a new idea to larger enterprises, this time around they are waking up to new buyer realities. Buyer behaviors continue to change rapidly and these new behaviors are associated with largely buyer-driven changes. What is confronting those wanting to achieve revenue growth from SMB buyers and companies is that they may know very little about these buyers and companies. How to market to SMB buyers and companies becoming one of the hot priority items showing up on the agenda of many large enterprise management meetings being held daily, weekly, or monthly. As one Senior VP of Sales and Markerting in IT pointed out to me recently:

“I am almost afraid to admit that we may have taken the SME (my notation: some executives refer to SMB as SME – small and mid-size enterprises) businesses for granted all these years. We never really moved beyond segmenting by employee size and revenue so we really don’t know a lot about SME’s as we should. It’s easy say you want to target them but planning how to target them is basically a whole new ball game for us.”

Because little knowledge may exist about SMB businesses and buyers, there are perhaps more assumptions being made about SMB than for larger accounts. Generalized perceptions and preconceived notions run rampant in the halls and meeting rooms of larger enterprises attempting to figure out how to market to SMB segments. There is what I call a “definition churn” that can happen when knowledge is found wanting – new definitions, classifications, segmentations, and etc. begin to appear every 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. Moving around 1,000’s of accounts and prospects in virtual databases to new buckets created for employee size, revenue size, product targets, and verticals.

Unprecedented Transformation Occurring

In the past, working with these definitions may have been sufficient. Looking ahead into the future - and the near future at that – these definitions alone will no doubt prove to be limiting and even detrimental to growth. We are experiencing an unprecedented transformation in the world of business with new buyer-driven economies, ecosystems, networks, and communications emerging constantly – making understanding of SMB buyers and companies that may have been attained even as little 3 to 5 years ago nearly obsolete.

For many large enterprise organizations that show up on the famed Fortune 1000 or Global 2000 lists, growing the SMB customer base may be their number one, or at least in the top five, priority. It is also, as a result of new buyer realities that are emerging, their number one challenge. To tackle both angles of this two-sided coin, gaining deeper layers of understanding about SMB buyers and companies will need to get on these same priority lists.

Next Up: Understanding New Buyer Realities In SMB

Follow @TonyZambito

Related articles

• Predictive Buyer Modeling Is Changing the Future of B2B (buyerology.com)
• Revenue Growth by Choice and The Buyer Orbit (buyerology.com)
• 5 Ways New Buyer Behaviors Are Impacting B2B Sales (buyerology.com)
• 3 Ways To Connect With Today's B2B Buyers (customerthink.com)

Unlike traditional media, social networking sets up a marketing meritocracy in which size doesn’t matter. At very little cost, small businesses can now access major channels of communication, and by extension a much larger customer base. Social networking is virtually money-neutral; it’s all about content generation and authentic interactions.

Small businesses’ experience with “authentic interactions” offline may give them an advantage in using social networking as a marketing tool. They tend to be closer and more familiar with their customers in general because their small scale makes it easier to do so. Translating this attitude to the online world may be more natural for them than it is for larger companies whose relationships with customers have been more distant.

From local coffee shops to tech start-ups, a Facebook page and a Twitter feed are becoming par for the course. But a whole new set of social platforms (themselves start-ups) has emerged to deliver growth opportunities to the social-savvy small business:

• Kickstarter: Before entrepreneurs can think about boosting sales, they need to get over the fundraising hurdle. Kickstarter makes this key first step social, allowing entrepreneurs, inventors, and artists to crowdsource capital—faster and in greater quantities than through traditional avenues. Just this month, an iPhone dock project and a video game design group soared well over $1 million.
• Open Forum (AMEX): American Express Open (a longtime client of ours) hosts a community for business owners called Open Forum. Connections among members can often lead to collaboration, partnerships, and even new leads. Open Forum is a place where small businesses can gain knowledge from a marketing powerhouse, as well as share their ideas in a more egalitarian conversation.
• 99designs and DesignCrowd: Thanks to a growing number of social sites for crowdsourcing creative work—like 99designs and DesignCrowd—agencies now have access to a broader selection of branding talent on-demand. These platforms let small firms tap into communications expertise without having them on staff.

Inherently, social media is democratic and accessible—and relatively low-cost. Facebook and Twitter can do a lot for any brand, but specialized platforms like these allow small businesses to develop even more creative strategies for brand-building and growth.

A study conducted by Fred Reicheld of Bain & Company, Inc. stated that “a 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit”.  For many companies, this correlation between customer retention and profit could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue gained.  And, not only do loyal customers mean continual revenue, but they can become a powerful source of word-of-mouth marketing and promotion for a company or brand.

3 ways loyal customers help increase revenue for SMBs:

1. Gaining New Customers (and revenue) – Happy customers turned brand advocates can become a source of word-of-mouth advertising for a business.  These brand evangelists are essentially a free field marketing/promotion team, singing a company or brand’s praises to friends, family, co-workers and connections.
2. Cutting Costs – Loyal customers tend to be lower maintenance, reducing the need to spend time and resources “selling” them on products or services.  Instead, continue to delight these customers and deliver results and they will stay with you forever.
3. Saving Time – Brand advocates are also happy to defend and promote your brand to that one discontented customer who just posted a scathing review on your Yelp or Google Place page.  Instead of having to spend additional time mitigating with an unhappy customer, your community of advocates will come to your defense, often sending and even more powerful message to prospects and potential customers.

So, how do you create a loyal customer?

1. Make a Good First Impression – It all starts with the first time a customer interacts with your brand or company.  This may be before they even walk through your doors.  A great example of this is the AVIA Long Beach Hotel whose guest services team proactively created a positive and welcoming guest experience before their guests even arrived at their hotel.  First impressions don’t necessarily make or break a deal, but they can certainly aid in securing loyalty and brand advocacy from your customers.
2. Listen to your Customers – First, create and provide social media outlets for customers to provide their feedback (claim profiles on Yelp, Google Places, Twitter, Facebook, etc. to ensure you as the business owner has full Admin control over them).  Next, ensure that customers can find these profile pages by sending links via social media and email newsletters, and proactively monitoring what customers are saying about your company or brand.
3. Take Action – The last thing you want to do is make your customers feel ignored or undervalued.  If you’ve provided the feedback outlets and social media/review profiles (and even if you haven’t) you need to respond and act on what they are saying.  Don’t ignore what’s being said.  If the feedback is positive (terrific), the comments should still be acknowledged, just as negative feedback needs to be addressed in a timely and professional manner.
4. Know When to Walk Away – While negative customer reviews can be a major set-back to the success or credibility of a company, small businesses need to be wary of casting too wide of a net trying to please everyone (you can’t please everybody).  The idea that every single person should be converted into a brand evangelist may seem ideal, but is not a realistic goal for a small business with limited funds and resources.  Focus on catering to your target market, and deliver world class products, service and results to those in that core audience.
5. Tap Your Employees – A small businesses’ employees are typically the ones engaging with customers on a daily basis.  Incentivize those in customer service to keep customers happy.  This will help to generate reviews and referrals, which will help to elevate the credibility of a company or brand.  Delighted customers won’t hesitate to post a review or recommendation if you ask.

When limited resources are a factor, small businesses need to make a decision regarding which customers are the most likely to become brand advocates.  It’s important to decide where customer service efforts will be most effective and where to allocate time and money.  A terrific post by Hugo Guzman, proposes that businesses should focus on marketing to (and servicing) their brand advocates and not their brand “malcontents” who are never going to become fans (or at least not without significant time and resources being drained in the process).

It’s not an ideal situation for small businesses to reinvent the wheel marketing and selling to customers who may never be a good fit for their product, brand or services.  Small businesses can cut costs and save time by instead keeping their current customers happy, instilling loyalty and securing that brand evangelism.  In the end, it is more cost-effective for small businesses to retain happy customers and thereby expand opportunities to cost-effectively grow revenue.

• An educated estimate would be that about 60% are not consistently doing digital at all.  
• Among all agencies we've met with, the most common response to the question, "What have you done online?", the answer is "Oh, we've definitely done digital.  We've run with the local newspaper a number of times."  These are agencies in large markets, by the way.  Not agencies in DMA #153.
• When asked how they ad served these campaigns, 100% of respondents say, "what do you mean?"
• When asked if they're aware their campaigns could be short 20% of impressions by not third party serving, 90% say, "We don't know what you mean."

But the degree to which you've cringed at any of the above won't compare to the answer we get about 50% of the time when we ask why digital isn't a part of every plan: "Our clients aren't really asking for it."  Any agency who waits for their clients to lead them into a new medium - or any medium for that matter - is asking to be replaced.  It is the agency's job to know media consumption habits, not the client's.  Many of the above answers are shocking, but this one takes the cake.

Here's to hoping some of those folks are reading the articles on sites like these.  It's good for the agencies, their clients, and the marketing industry as a whole.

1. Know that almost no one will be 100% self-service.  Whether it's an 800 number for small businesses for a live outside sales person who meets with the larger corporation to better customize the experience for franchisees, there will have to be human involvement.
2. Make it plain and obvious what is being bought.  This could be trouble for the majority of the inventory within the system, given ad.com's rep of being 100% blind.  Small business will not be ok with this.  There should be an option to exclusively buy AOL and its core properties.  If buying network inventory it needs to be channel-oriented at a minimum with a fully transparent site list available.  Without it, small businesses turn away.
3. Make the API well known and available to franchisee aggregators like Cobalt and AdReady who already have programmed into RMX and Google.  Plat A's offering could be a better option than the other two for certain marketers but it must be available.  This may already be available or in dev, but making it widely known is key.

AOL, please don't tell us you've crossed the finish line with this product.  Squeeze the water sponge on your head and keep running!