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’ SaaS adoption drivers last week, we switch gears to look at their top sources of influence.
Specifically, the most influence by far comes from media or ad sales people at 41 percent. That’s followed by ratings & reviews (17 percent), family & friends (14 percent), freelancers and consultants (13 percent), digital agencies (11 percent), and people & groups on social media (3 percent).
These results were gathered in Fall 2021 so they reflect sentiments at the time.
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Data Dive
Going deeper, a few other insights jump out from these figures.
– It’s surprising that sales reps represent such a commanding lead of SMB influence.
– This outperformed even trusted family or friends, which is traditionally known to be a strong source of influence for SMBs.
– This is a positive sign for software vendors in that they hold a great deal of influence over SMB software buying decisions.
– It’s also a reminder to optimize sales tactics and communications to not squander the opportunity presented by this level of influence and authority.
– The remainder of the answers trailed far behind, with the second-highest point of influence at 17 percent (ratings and reviews).
– Though this and other SMB influences trail behind, they’re still worth considering. Here, it’s a sign that software vendors should optimize listings and reviews, given their influence.
– Family and friends’ influence surprisingly came in third place in these rankings. However, they’re still a factor at 14 percent.
– There is less that software vendors can do to cultivate this channel, given that it’s more about word-of-mouth.
– However, they can empower SMBs with referral programs that tap into this friends & family influence.
– The influence held by freelancers and consultants is notable, and was examined in-depth in a recent Localogy report.
– Digital agencies performed poorly in these survey results in terms of SMBs’ perceived influence. This is surprising, given that sales reps (per the above) performed so well. These are inherently similar entities.
– Lastly, social media appears to be a non-issue in terms of SMB influence, especially when sentiments flow from unknown individuals/entities.
– This validates that SMBs trust sources of authority (sales rep) or familiarity (friends & family), as opposed to unknown individuals on social media.
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.
