Tip No. 6 – Marketing to Small Business Owners

By Cheryl Hayman, Hayman Strategy

The ‘one size fits all’ method doesn’t work when it comes to connecting with small business owners.

Many of us within the ABN need to attract and engage with other small businesses and their owners. Marketing to such a unique audience requires some diverse thinking and a reduction in the grandeur of the usual marketing formats we discuss, especially for those of us who herald from bigger corporations and brands.

Small business owners are busy. They wear many hats and are often generalists in many areas.

Areas on which to focus that help small business owners notice you have to do with:

1. How your service helps the business owner stand out, in other words promotion – do you have a means by which they can grow their customer base and their profits?
2. How your service helps the business owner find new customers – what do you offer that adds value to them and provides a resource or skill they don’t have internally?

Understanding that a large percentage of small businesses with less than five employees don’t have a website, you have to think about how to best reach these business owners as well. While they may not have a website, they do subscribe to industry trade journals, meet with peers and use online services to stay competitive. Even though they might not be on the bleeding edge of technology adoption, as they are busy running their company, small businesses definitely look to find new ways of reaching customers.

Introducing your products and services through targeted ad placement is one approach for connecting with this group.

Another is providing useful information that helps a small business owner stay competitive.

Become a champion of this group – provide resources and participate in the conversation where small business owners are.

So what can you quickly do to connect to the SMB audience?

Here are a few sites where small businesses are actively present:

• Manta – allows for specialised/targeted advertising to small businesses and decision makers by revenue, employee size, industry, etc
• LinkedIn – allows for finding business professionals by industry
• Present.ly – allows individuals within a company to post short, frequent updates that are tracked or “followed” by others. Unlike Twitter, it provides a secure and private way to share updates among members of a company, without them being visible to the general public
• TalkBizNow – allows networking while visualising the small-world phenomenon by displaying how each member is connected to any other member

Good luck – and always remember it’s about tailoring your strategic approach, not a one size fits all approach.

MORE GREAT POSTS BY CHERYL HAYMAN

• Tip No. 5: Integrating your Marketing and R&D Strategies to Win
• Tip No. 4: Shoppers even more Savvy
• Tip No. 3: Brand Loyalty-the Pot of Gold
• Tip No. 2: Out-Step the Competition
• Tip No. 1: Remember ‘AIDA’

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Cheryl Hayman – Hayman Strategy Cheryl Hayman owns and manages a strategic marketing and business consultancy, Hayman Strategy, providing a broad range of business and marketing solutions to corporations. Prior to establishing her own business, Cheryl had over 20 years experience as a senior marketing executive in multi-national organisations spanning Australia, NZ and the UK. Cheryl undertakes a number of non-executive Board roles and sits on several Advisory Boards including the Australian Businesswomen’s Network. Cheryl is a Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute, holding a CPM. Cheryl personally undertakes continuous professional development within her various business roles, as well as attending external courses. Phone: 0408 200 545 or 02 9555 5776 Website: www.haymanstrategy.com Email: cheryl@haymanstrategy.com Twitter: @cherylhayman Facebook: www.facebook.com/cheryl.hayman LinkedIn: See Cheryl’s Public Profile Member Profile: See Cheryl’s Member Profile