A decent website, SEM and social media marketing strategies are valuable, cost-effective tools which can help a nimble company be heard above the crowd, and as such should make sense for small business owners. If only!

If only it was easy to get some small businesses to see that a poorly search engine optimised (SEO) website with accessibility and usability issues a-plenty will never fully represent what online can do for them. Unfortunately, investment in a sub-standard site has generated so little return, they now see improvements as just throwing away more cash. This conservatism is a BIG obstacle when communicating with potential new clients – as, time and again, we have to prove that if they had a site that worked harder, it would lessen the need for other, more time and cash intensive offline solutions.

It’s far easier to sell to our larger clients than the mercurial small business owner who knows exactly what he’s got (or not got) to play with. It’s just as well we’re a diversified business – if we were solely focussed on the small business market I think we’d find that the level of effort we have to go to in making a sale, resolving objections, educating on benefits and solutions, placing a focus on both pre-planning and on-going online marketing would obliterate any profits.

That’s why, I think, the only businesses that have really succeeded in selling online solutions to small firms are either one-man-bands who can keep their costs at a minimum or big companies who can bring scalable solutions to market.

The problem with one-man-bands is that no matter how good they are, they don’t bounce off buses, and thus don’t come with built-in business continuity planning (BCP). Also, even if they don’t get run over by the bus, they are often unable to take their clients to the next stage if their clients’ business online demands grow beyond their capacity to deliver. (Perhaps I’m doing some freelancers a disservice here – those who, in the first instance, ensure that they supply their clients with a BCP compliant solution.)

The problem with the scalable solutions offered by the bigger players is that they offer little in terms of differentiation, can be difficult to customise and throw up all sorts of issues in their T+Cs – such as, who owns any registered users?

The small B2B website market presents real challenges for miggle. I can no longer match the price of the man who works from the back bedroom, or offer out our technology at a price that can compete with those who can sell similar in much higher volumes. We still get work though, because we can sell ourselves on service and dedication and are getting increasing numbers of pitches and projects through word-of-mouth. The extent to which this is a foundation on which we can continue to work with small businesses on their websites is, I guess, what makes it exciting. Which is why I set up a small business in the first place.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.