HN: How would you target small business owners?

Go pound the pavement.

My dad has a small web design and hosting business. Nearly all of his customers live within five miles of his home, he's succeeding because he knows his neighborhood, wants to see local business do well, and knows how to talk to them and build a relationship over time.

I know this is not a magic way to get the attention of small business owners nation-wide, but if there were such a thing you would know it because everyone else with something to sell would be praising it loud and long.

The best would be reach out to them pulling out their phone numbers/email from yellow pages.

Other bulk marketing options:

- Attend any events/places where your target audience gather. Eg: whole sale flower market, hotel association meeting, banks etc

- Buy ad space on possible websites they visit Eg. websites of their suppliers, hosting provider.

- Create an interesting referral scheme.

- Buy in ambassadors within the community to talk for you.

- Content based advertising on emails or with placements (there would be too much noise though)

Depending on whether the SMEs are aware of their need and a possible existence of a company like yours who offer solution they might search the internet, in which case you are lucky and search advertising would work.

How expensive is your product/service? If it costs enough that cold-calling would give good ROI, then you can use the yellow pages to get numbers, or just drop in. I was recently in an attorney's waiting room when a salesperson for a software company walked in on a cold visit and I was really surprised at how well received she was even though initially they weren't interested.

Alternately, you can call a few local ones and offer them a free subscription/license in exchange for contact names. An actual name of someone to call is infinitely more valuable than just a number. A name, with the recommendation of "Suzie at Flowers4U told me you might be interested" is even more so.

For Adwords, I think you just have to get creative to find words that are cheap but effective. Trial and error!

Think about the small business owners you know. In their regular business, do they do a lot of searching on google ? Spend much time reading flyers that came in the mail ?

The answer is probably not, and that's why it is hard to advertise to them.

They do talk to their friends and employees if they have any. If you do something that saves money at one small business, word of mouth and the migration of small business employees can bring you new business, but on a long time scale.

One reason why cold-calling and personal visits can work (presuming your target has money, and you have a useful product etc), is that it costs the advertiser to a substantial amount to go to each potential customer, therefore the advertisers must focus and do some research, and the buyers can believe there is a reason to spend a few minutes hearing the proposal.

It's kind of like those proposals to end spam by charging a penny per email.

I suspect that most advertising money is simply wasted. That vast sea of billboards, the commercials on TV, ads in magazines, etc, represent nothing more than a massive long term drain on society. It's possible that with new ways of tracking the effectiveness of adveritising, like linking your google adwords to google checkout transactions and "closing the loop", we will reduce spending on advertising overall. That would be a big shift in our economy and society.