It hardly requires reminding anyone that there are significant opportunities in selling to the massive (but fickle) small and medium-sized (SMB) market; by some accounts there are as many as 30 million SMBs operating in the US and perhaps another 75 million on a global basis. And as appealing as the SMB market is because of its sheer size and scale, it is certainly a challenging market. You could line up 100 SMBs—plumbers or manicurists or lawyers—ask them how they market and advertise their business and you’d probably get 100 different answers. As a company that closely works with leading SMB-focused solution providers across media, marketing and digital solutions, we have come to a few observations as to what steps are necessary to make an engaging and profitable SMB customer interaction.
#1: Know Your Customer, Thoroughly
It used to be that finding a high-street/local business prospect was as simple as walking down the street or looking through the phone book. Nowadays, finding the ‘right’ SMB prospect is a key step to securing long-term high value customers.
Start by defining your ideal customer profile (ICP). Get going with the obvious factors, such as industry, company size, and location to map out a high-level view of your ICP. But when selling to small businesses, the high-level firmographic-based definition doesn’t cut the bill. While more traditional market research methods, such as surveys, interviews, or focus groups to gather data about potential SMB customers have their merit, they are often time and resource intensive.
Employ tools and platforms that use data-science on external digital data to allow you to go granular with your ICP and surface prospects that best align with your solutions and capabilities. Matured sales intelligence tools have the ability to help you define your ICP and find the best prospects for your SMB sales efforts. The deeper you are able to go with your ICP definition, the more targeted your SMB prospecting efforts can be.
Get a deeper understanding of your prospects’ digital and operational maturity, budget, pain points, and needs that align with your products or services. Having an understanding of the prospect’s digital health will help you to ascertain what products or services to pitch. For example, if you know that a prospect is running an ad campaign but does not have a multi-screen compatible website, then pitching a responsive website is a no-brainer. These types of small wins allow you to get a foot in the door for future upsell opportunities.
For example, if you are a digital marketing agency specializing in great SEO work, find SMBs who are lacking in organic ranking so that you can add considerable value to their business. If they are already doing well on the advertising front, then building a case for investing in your SEO service becomes much easier. Also note that if these businesses have been continuously running ads at a high cost, then it is very likely that the ads are generating a positive ROI and the businesses may have cash to spare for other online endeavors. Knowing what exactly your customers lack and how your company can improve their business even before the first meeting, is a crucial element of a successful customer experience process.
Keeping yourself active on social media, online forums, and communities, where SMB owners and decision-makers discuss topics related to your products or services, is another great way to gain a deeper understanding of their interests and challenges. Competitor analysis at regular intervals will help you to understand their customer base and identify gaps or opportunities they might be missing, which could potentially be your target market.
Remember that identifying potential SMB customers is an ongoing process. As your business grows and the market evolves, so will your target audience.
#2: Listen to Your Customer, Actively
Even if you’ve done great lead qualification and think you know exactly what your SMB buyers need, sometimes your SMB’s needs might be completely different from what you might want to sell to them. By practicing active listening, you’ll come up with perhaps better solutions that address their specific needs instead of simply trying to sell them something that you think would be useful for them. This, of course, leads to improved customer satisfaction. You see, when you listen to your SMB customers and take their feedback into account, you demonstrate that you value their opinions and are committed to meeting their expectations. This fosters a sense of trust and loyalty.
Other than that, customer feedback is a valuable source of information about areas of your business that may need improvement. By actively seeking and heeding feedback, you can identify weaknesses, take corrective actions to enhance your products or services, fine-tune your marketing strategies, and hatch innovative ideas.
Well-looked after customers are more likely to remain loyal to your brand, reducing churn and increasing customer retention rates, which, in a way, largely contributes to your agency reputation management. Happy clients are more likely to recommend your business to others. Positive word-of-mouth referrals can boost your customer acquisition efforts and help expand your customer base.
#3: Wow Your Customer, Impressively
The volume of data in the market grows exponentially every hour of every day. Harness the power of digital company data to wow your SMBs. Empower yourself with the knowledge about your SMB customer’s business history, target market, brand, social presence and website robustness before you meet them! Digital data helps you anticipate customer behavior and current and future needs. By analyzing digital data, you can make informed predictions about the needs and demands of your SMB customers, and their readiness to buy your solution, allowing you to proactively meet their expectations.
You can also leverage external digital data to gain more insight about your SMB customers and turn that data into hyper-personalized conversation opportunities. Always stay aligned to the actual needs of your SMB customers. This approach reduces the risk of relying on assumptions and helps you focus on initiatives that have a higher chance of success.
With data-driven insights, you can personalize your offerings based on your buyer’s specific preferences and enhance the customer experience. Furthermore, CRM and internal data analytics gives you access to real-time data on customer interactions and feedback—so that your business addresses issues promptly to resolve complaints, identifies upselling and cross-selling opportunities, and provides better support services.
#4: Converse with Your Customer, Substantively
Don’t just converse with your customer, become their trusted partner. Set yourself apart with conversations that demonstrate genuine interest in bettering your SMB customer’s business, thereby improving the quality of your sales conversations manyfold.
According to a McKinsey study, 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. Connect with your customers at various levels and use your emotional intelligence to truly understand your customers.
While selling to small businesses, work with them as advisors. Ask the right questions and clearly communicate your strategy to help them remain relevant through positive action that addresses both their short-term survival and long-term growth needs.This brings authenticity to the entire sales engagement experience and when you bring authenticity, you build trust.
Additionally, conversations provide immediate feedback on your products, services, and overall customer experience. You can gather information about their preferences, which enables you to personalize your interactions, marketing messages, and offerings.
#5: Own Your Customer, Fully
It is time to rise above the mundane sales process. Distance yourself from your competitors by providing your SMB customers with an extraordinary sales experience. Leverage the 3Es of exceptional customer experience—Expertise, Engagement, and Empathy:
- Expertise about your knowledge of their business
- Engagement with data-backed meaningful conversations
- Empathy for your SMB’s needs and goals
Unlock Unique, Compelling Conversations For SMB Sales Like Never Before
“A“Digital adoption of SMB clients is the biggest opportunity of growth for us and BuzzBoard signals helped us directly tap into that opportunity by equipping us with more enriched and informed conversation touch points with our clientele.”
—Kelly Hazel, Regional Digital Sales Director at Nexstar
BuzzBoard is a B2SMB account intelligence platform that equips SMB-focused sales reps with data storytelling for every business at every stage of the funnel. Our platform provides the world’s most comprehensive SMB data that equips sellers with up-to-date and relevant insights about SMB prospects to initiate meaningful conversations with data-qualified prospects.
The SMB market offers tremendous rewards for companies that make the effort to practice these five steps to strengthen their customer relationships, achieve higher conversion rates, and increase revenue.
From using AI to predict their next-best prospects to leveraging it to help sellers convert their next-best customers… we’re proud to lead this transformative journey to SMB sales excellence… for our users—the sales professionals!
Want to win more customers? Learn more about our SMB prospecting platform.
