Yesterday I was at the LSA Bootcamp event in San Francisco for local businesses that precedes our main LSA16 Conference.  About 100 area businesses were in attendance and the nature of the event has led to open discussion and active participation by those in the room.

There was a nice mix of businesses – a sampling of those present include bars/restaurants, hotel, commercial handyman, motorcycle related business, church, concrete company, interior design, travel, hair stylist and many more.  At least one business indicated they had multiple locations.

Here’s 7 observations from the event based on the content presented and questions asked:

1. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was in response to the question, “How many businesses in the room are currently engaged in a paid search campaign?”  Only 2 or 3 hands were raised.  Yet almost half the room had tried paid search in the past.  It’s clear that small businesses have had a poor experience with paid search most tangibly in return on investment.  Marketers need to be sensitive to the past failure rate of local businesses with SEM when pitching their services.  It’s unlikely that a business owner will be immediately receptive to a marketing strategy that leads with SEM without significant explanation about how a provider would make a difference compared to prior results.
2. The low participation rate in SEM by local businesses, assuming this room is representative of the wider marketplace, does present a unique opportunity.  It would appear the competition in paid search is fairly low for this market segment (small, local businesses).  With properly managed bidding through targeting and long-tail keywords, there should be an opportunity to get effective placement at the top of search results at a price point that yields a good return with quality leads.
3. Most of the businesses made it apparent that they already manage much of their marketing on their own – which includes almost everything.  Content from Google, YP, Yelp, Brandify, RevLocal, Belly, Constant Contact, and Bing covered SEO, SEM, social media, email marketing, loyalty programs, reviews and online presence.  While this might be skewed by the fact they were in attendance and thus took an interest in learning more about marketing, these local businesses are unlikely to just hand over the keys to their marketing activity for someone else to handle.
4. However, local businesses will admit that it’s not easy to manage their own marketing.  Many questions by the audience pointed to specific challenges in every area from dealing with negative reviews to converting their website to be mobile friendly.  They know there’s lots for them to learn and are hungry for specific tips on how to do these things better.  While these businesses would not be receptive to someone coming in and “hijacking” their marketing, it seems they recognize they could use some collaborative help.  To the extent marketers can identify those soft areas where businesses are experiencing challenges, it would help focus and improve the success of sales pitches.
5. Since local businesses aren’t professional marketers they do not know all the lingo used by marketers.  I overheard someone whisper “what’s an extension?” and “what’s optimized for mobile mean?”  They understood the concept once explained, but just didn’t recognize the industry term for it.  Be careful to not talk over a business owner even if they demonstrate practical experience with marketing – they won’t buy something they don’t understand and will not always ask or give you the chance to explain.
6. Prepare to answer questions about your reviews.  Small businesses fight hard to maintain good reviews of their own reputation online and will raise the issue of negative reviews of a marketing company who is trying to help them.
7. Small businesses are pitched so many solutions by so many providers that they get suspicious.  Once the attendees of the Bootcamp understood that the purpose of the event was to truly help and educate them, the dropping of their guard was palpable.  They were open and receptive.  They smiled and asked honest questions.  Demonstrating that you want to help first, not sell first, goes a long way in establishing credibility and trust.

Overall, we had a great time at LSA’s SMB Bootcamp and are extremely thankful to our sponsors and presenters who represented the industry so well.  What made it especially enjoyable was the positive vibe in the room that led to speakers being not just applauded, but cheered.  Our speakers projected real genuineness in wanting to help these businesses not just by giving them knowledge but in their desire to see them succeed. The audience of SMBs responded by seeking them out for help and advice during breaks and were much more receptive at that point to hearing about how the marketers might be able to service them.

At least 5 business owners volunteered to join our small business panel to share their perspectives at LSA16.  I hope you’ll be there to hear for yourself the value these SMBs got from the Bootcamp and learn what they look for and value in a marketing partner.