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 Modern Commerce Monitor (MCM) Wave 6.1 answers these and other questions across the SMB SaaS product set, which we preview in this Benchmark Bytes series. After examining SMBs’ top adoption influences last week, we switch gears to look at operational impact of that adoption.
Specifically, SMBs who spend more than 25 percent of their time on revenue-generating activities are more likely to use online services/tools (a.k.a., SMB Saas). For example, among businesses that spend 25-50 percent of their time on revenue-generating activities, 50 percent use SMB SaaS.
These results were gathered in Fall 2021 so they reflect sentiments at the time.
Localogy members can access full charts and SMB survey reports. Non-members can purchase reports.
Data Dive
Going deeper, a few other insights jump out from these figures.
– It’s unsurprising that businesses who use SMB Saas are, on average, more likely to spend a greater share of their time on revenue-generating activity.
– One of the inherent benefits of SMB Saas is automation, thus freeing up busy proprietors to spend time on more valuable and non-rote tasks.
– The outcome, when done right, is greater revenue performance by SMBs. This is essentially the core value proposition of SMB SaaS, borne out in these survey results.
– Drilling deeper, businesses that adopt online services/tools spend 65 percent-75 percent more time on revenue-generating activities versus those that don’t adopt.
– Beyond a greater share of their time applied towards, revenue-generating activity, SMB Saas has also allowed businesses to save money (70 percent), have more capabilities (51 percent), and land new customers (41 percent).
– As for areas of improvement and opportunity, only 33 percent of businesses utilize the full capabilities of the SMB Saas tools they’ve procured.
– The biggest reason for this engagement shortfall is software competency, which comes down to training.
– In fact, 21 percent of businesses state that training is a big issue.
– 13 percent of SMB respondents report that they need to implement additional technology to be able to utilize the full capabilities of the SMB Saas tools they adopt.
– These are clear demand signals for SMB Saas vendors to create better onboarding and training tools so that SMBs can make better use of the software capabilities.
– Of course, this is easier said than done but the benefits for vendors who can pull it off include greater SMB retention that stems from their perceived value exchange and “top-of-mind” status.
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 Localogy original survey research. That will include SMB 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.
