As part of the ritual of examining local commerce and SMB Saas strategies, Localogy goes right to the source: SMBs themselves. How do they feel about marketing and operational software? What features do they want? And how has their hunger changed in a pandemic? This is all a moving target.
Localogy’s latest Mobile Commerce Monitor report dives into websites in particular. Entitled Key Trends in Website Services, it examines original SMB sentiments and behavior for online marketing services – particularly those tied to thier websites. This report was done in collaboration with Duda.
After examining the types of marketing services SMBs purchase from website providers last week, we switch gears this week to look at the top areas where they need help. Where do their biggest pain points lie and how can software come to the rescue in their online marketing and operations?
The top area that SMBs reported needing help is marketing to old customers (45 percent). That’s followed by marketing to new customers (38 percent), building mobile commerce functionality (27 percent), using internal data for marketing purposes (25 percent), and online scheduling (25 percent).
Further down the list, SMBs want help to reposition themselves in their markets (23 percent). They also want help targeting customers for new business segments (18 percent) and targeting customers for a new service (15 percent). 54 percent want to work with providers with industry expertise.
Localogy members can access full charts and SMB survey reports. Non-members can purchase reports.
What Does it All Mean?
Going a bit deeper, a few things jump out at us:
– SMBs’ need for help in marketing to new and old customers represented a commanding 83 percent of responses.
– Help in marketing to old customers is a greater need, presumably because a lapsed relationship makes marketing and communications more challenging than marketing to current customers.
– Getting those old customers back is a dominant objective, given the overall drive to maximize lifetime value of a given customer, and recoup customer acquisition costs.
– Many of these SMB needs trace back to CRM software in some way.
– For example, marketing to new and old customers can benefit from customer records, contextual notes and contact info.
– Targeting customers for new business segments (18 percent) and targeting customers for a new service (15 percent) can likewise be informed and empowered by CRM.
– This is supportive of the increasingly foundational role of CRM in SMB marketing.
– The need to have m-commerce functionaity in a given website is also a dominant need in these survey results, and unsuprising
– The growth in mobile ubiquity, Covid-induced eCommerce and the “shoppability” trend are converging in a perfect storm for m-commerce.
– Scheduling functionality (25 percent) is an offshoot of the same need – especially for service-based businesses – in being able to capture high-intent users with action-oriented website functionality
– This should signal a sizeable opportunity for SMB SaaS players.
Time to Shine
Stepping back, SMB online marketing – website-based or otherwise – continues to grow rapidly. SMB SaaS startups and online services providers are correspondingly thriving as it continues to grow as a leading subsector of the broader SaaS universe. There’s a long-tail opportunity at play.
Meanwhile, new SMB SaaS users could represent permanent adopters – a concept that’s accelerated in the Covid era as SMBs are forced to boost their digital transformation. This sends them into the arms of SaaS providers to accomplish a range of marketing and operational functions.
We’ll return in the next installment to go deeper into SMB marketing and website adoption. That will include their goals and success factors. Let us know what additional insights jump out at you from the above data, and stay tuned for more breakdowns in our Benchmark Bytes series.
