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 SMB SaaS, which we preview in this Benchmark Bytes series. After examining SMBs’ demand for automated and self-serve software sales, we switch gears to look at the conditions that compel automation.
In other words, when being sold software for various operational needs, are SMBs getting to the point where they want to not deal with traditional sales reps? Do they want to self serve? Many developed such muscles in the Covid era when they were forced to take that option. Where do they stand now?
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Data Dive
Going deeper, a few insights jump out from these figures.
– Resurfacing last week’s data, there’s generally more openness toward self-serve or automated sales processes.
– The key term is ‘openness’ as SMBs have gotten less binary or absolute over time.
– in other words, there’s a sharp drop-off over 3 survey waves in SMBs that prefer automation “in all circumstances”
– Similarly, the number of SMBs that are open to automation in some circumstances shows a clear upward trend over the past three survey waves.
– This openness is likely due to broadened perspectives and practices that were forced in the Covid era. SMBs tried new things and are now less intimidated by them.
– As for the types of conditions that make SMBs more amenable to automated sales processes, the leading factor (55 percent) is when SMBs already know what they need and just need to complete a sale.
– That’s followed by product complexity (53 percent). Specifically, if the product is not too complicated, SMBs are open to self-serve software sales.
– Though automation is appreciated at the sales level, SMBs still want live support. 37 percent report that they’re fine with automated sales, so long as they have the option for live support after the sale.
– Price is also a factor. 35 percent of SMBs report that they are open to self-serve software sales in cases when the price isn’t too high.
–In other words, higher price tags usually require more of a “considered purchase” including lots of questions SMBs may want to ask a live person.
– Lastly, 29 percent of SMBs are open to automated sales so long as they can easily cancel the service or software license any time in the same automated fashion.
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.
