4 ms·

Ask HN: What is best strategy for selling a new product to SMB?

9 points by aml183 11y ago

Gustomaximus 11y ago
Wow this is a broad question with little to go on. For comms look to break your sale into 2 parts. 1) The introducion: define your key selling points, especially any points of differentiation. E.g. Show value and ideally ease of implementation. Make this short. Someone is likely to view your offer at a glance. Make a non committing and interesting call to action. 2) Have follow up materials for those that do where you go into detail and expand on selling points and information. Ideally you'll run them through in person. This could be for broshures or the website. LinkedIn should be your friend for making initial contact with decision makers. Try advertising and direct contact. Look to use that to get on the phone or have a face to face meeting. Be chill about your approach and don't push or be overly eager. Don't harass as people are busy and might be interested just not now but stay in contact with new and interesting information. Personally if I don't get a reply I wait 3-6 months to recontact. Aim to contact people up the food chain at companies. Things get taken more seriously when something interesting is passed down 'to investigate' that a junior presenting up. Given your product is new use this as a sales point. Never shy from truths when marketing. Embrace it and find the positive. Perhaps Thus business gets first mover advantage. Perhaps you can offer customisation specifically for there business as you develop the product offering. Ect. Is this the kind of information your looking for?
a_lifters_life 11y ago
Your first big hurdle will be educating the SMB.
danieltillett 11y ago
I thought the big problem was the valley of death. There is a reason why there seems to be so much opportunity in this market which is that you can’t make a profit because the acquisition costs of SMB customers exceed the LTV.
- debacle 11y ago
  And it really is a valley of death, because every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he can strike gold where no one else could.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Yes sometimes a market is deserted because everyone that tries to enter has died. If you need high touch sales to sell your product into the SMB market then you will fail. To succeed a SMB product needs to be sold like a consumer product.
agsamek 11y ago
Either it sells itself with basic marketing or sell it to big companies first.
- ianstallings 11y ago
  Yeah I agree. I'm not sure about the specifics of their product but with mine I can't spend too much time on each SMB because the return isn't high enough to compensate for a complex sales effort. 1000ft overview? Press releases, white papers, blogs posts, surveys, mailing list ads, and pay-per-click. Then those funnel into website sign ups with little to no upfront support.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

9 points by aml183 11y ago

Wow this is a broad question with little to go on. For comms look to break your sale into 2 parts. 1) The introducion: define your key selling points, especially any points of differentiation. E.g. Show value and ideally ease of implementation. Make this short. Someone is likely to view your offer at a glance. Make a non committing and interesting call to action. 2) Have follow up materials for those that do where you go into detail and expand on selling points and information. Ideally you'll run them through in person. This could be for broshures or the website. LinkedIn should be your friend for making initial contact with decision makers. Try advertising and direct contact. Look to use that to get on the phone or have a face to face meeting. Be chill about your approach and don't push or be overly eager. Don't harass as people are busy and might be interested just not now but stay in contact with new and interesting information. Personally if I don't get a reply I wait 3-6 months to recontact. Aim to contact people up the food chain at companies. Things get taken more seriously when something interesting is passed down 'to investigate' that a junior presenting up. Given your product is new use this as a sales point. Never shy from truths when marketing. Embrace it and find the positive. Perhaps Thus business gets first mover advantage. Perhaps you can offer customisation specifically for there business as you develop the product offering. Ect. Is this the kind of information your looking for?

a_lifters_life 11y ago

Your first big hurdle will be educating the SMB.

danieltillett 11y ago

I thought the big problem was the valley of death. There is a reason why there seems to be so much opportunity in this market which is that you can’t make a profit because the acquisition costs of SMB customers exceed the LTV.

debacle 11y ago
And it really is a valley of death, because every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he can strike gold where no one else could.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Yes sometimes a market is deserted because everyone that tries to enter has died. If you need high touch sales to sell your product into the SMB market then you will fail. To succeed a SMB product needs to be sold like a consumer product.

agsamek 11y ago

Either it sells itself with basic marketing or sell it to big companies first.

ianstallings 11y ago
Yeah I agree. I'm not sure about the specifics of their product but with mine I can't spend too much time on each SMB because the return isn't high enough to compensate for a complex sales effort. 1000ft overview? Press releases, white papers, blogs posts, surveys, mailing list ads, and pay-per-click. Then those funnel into website sign ups with little to no upfront support.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]