Small Business = Big Money

US-based local businesses comprise the world’s third-largest economy, trailing only the USA overall and China

A consensus estimate is that the annual nominal gross domestic output of the United States is just north of $17 trillion (and about the same size as the 28-country European Union.) Silver medalist China’s nominal GDP is just north of $10.3 trillion. The bronze medalist global economy is invariably shown as Japan, breaking the tape at $4.6 trillion, followed by Germany, the United Kingdom and France.

Yet, an $8.6 trillion economy is missing: local US businesses.

Year in and year out, small businesses in the US comprise about 51% of the gross domestic product of the United States, or about $8.6 trillion, according to the Small Business Administration.

Put another way, each year US small businesses create more economic output than global Top 20 economies Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Netherlands, Indonesia and Mexico combined.

If I haven’t convinced you enough on the importance of small businesses, according to the US Census Bureau, there are 5.68 million employer firms in the US and 89.8 percent of those firms have 20 or fewer workers. About 60% of all non-government US employees—about 94 million people—work for small businesses.

Let’s get to the point

How do B2B businesses market, sell and service products and services to SMBS if they are “where the money’s at?”

    1. Understand your consumer
      Information is everywhere! Data does exist, the problem is that companies don’t know how to piece this data together in one place. As a result, Sales Reps and marketers are spending more time researching and prospecting or pulling together incomplete buyer personas due to not having the critical information needed before engaging with accounts. Figuring out how to achieve a 360-degree view of your SMB accounts and buyers (preferences, key contacts, needs and more) will help better target them with the relevant and timely messages.
    2. Deliver the right message
      Traditional lead garnishing tactics are producing dead-end leads. Many marketers create small one-off campaigns based on limited variables known about their customer or prospect or campaigns that are honestly all about themselves, but do not take into account prospect needs. Once you have complete information on your prospect, use it and target from a more granular level – as a bank, how can you show that you know which banking offers Joe’s growing ecommerce business needs? Delivering the right content or offer will help ease their purchase decision. In addition, if they engage with that piece of content or on a certain concept, what is the next content or offer you can provide them to guide them closer to the sale? Use data to drive a personalization engine that recommends the next best offer at the right time to increase the reliability and dependency of the buyer.