July 04, 2000
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*** MarketingToSmallBiz.com ***
Practical News & Tips for Marketing to (not for!)
Small Businesses and SOHOs on the Internet
July 5, 2000 - Vol. I, Issue 6
1. NEWS: Score.org, Fedex, Interland, Mailing Lists
2. CASE STUDY: DSL.Net’s Marketing Partnerships
3. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: OneCore’s Rebecca Thomas on
Selling Financial Services to Small Businesses Online
* Yes! Please forward this to your pals -- and get
your own FREE subscription today at:
http://www.MarketingToSmallBiz.com
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NEWS
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* Special Note: Put Our Headlines on Your Site (Free)
Are you a fan of MarketingtoSmallBiz.com? Now you can
run our headlines on your Web site for free! Headlines
from our five other sister MarketingSherpa news channels
for marketers also available. For details go to:
http://www.isyndicate.com and search using the word
“MarketingSherpa”
* Partnerships Available with Newly Upgraded Score.org
SCORE (Service Core of Retired Executives), one of the
top non-profit players in the offering-free-services-to-
small-bizpeople-online (we need an acronymn for this!)
has just relaunched their site, score.org. Upgrades
include free online consulting with retired biz experts
and two free monthly ezines. Partners include
SmallOffice.com, who use the link to offer their free
Web site service to visitors, and the Kauffman Center
for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Looks like there’s room
for additional partners -- so if you have a tool or
service you’d like to offer small bizpeople through the
site, contact them today!
http://www.score.org
http://www.smalloffice.com
* Fedex Joins the Marketplace Battle to Offer Web Sites
to Small Business Customers
OK, we have a question, is there any company in America
serving the small biz marketplace who isn’t trying to
offer them free or discounted Web sites? IBM offers
them for $499 for six months, NetWork Solutions’ Image
Café for $9.95 per month and sites like Bigstep.com and
Amazon.com’s zShops give them away free … and there are
a dozen more just like them. Now Fedex is jumping into
the field via their new partnership with Orbit Commerce
scheduled to launch “mid-summer.” No prices or
marketing plans have been announced yet. We predict
this could either be a huge winner with the power of the
Fedex name and reach; or a huge loser like so many other
click and mortar plays. More news later.
http://www.fedex.com
http://www.orbitcommerce.com
* Campaign Review: Interland’s Web Hosting Postcard
Does shocking creative work? In an effort to stand out
from the pack, Interland just mailed thousands of small
business people a postcard featuring a four-color photo
of a blue-suited businessman with an egg plastered to
his face. OK, it got our attention for a moment as we
said, “Ew!” and passed it to a coworker. But we only
noticed the photo, not the offer (90 days of free Web hosting)
nor the fact that Interland has won some prestigious
awards. Perhaps if they’d focused their creative on
those items instead we might have taken them more
seriously as a potential Web service provider. Moral:
if you have a good story to tell, then don’t distract
small business owners from it with your creative. (BTW:
How many small business owners emotionally relate to a
guy in a blue suit anyway?)
http://www.interland.com
* Media Buy of the Week: SOHO Mail Database
List Broker Bethesda List Center has gotten several
leading publishers to pool their names into one giant
“Mother of All Small Biz Mailing Lists” database -- with
2.7 million total deduped names. You can select by SIC,
gender, zip, title, company size, you name it. All
names originally came from publishers’ direct response
offers -- so this should be much more successful for you
than a regular compiled listing. (If you don’t know the
difference between direct response and compiled names,
we’re sure Bethesda will be happy to explain it to you!)
Cost is $145/m plus selection fees etc. Contact
Bethesda at 301.986.1455, info@bethesda-list.com
http://www.bethesda-list.com
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CASE STUDY: DSL.Net
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* How DSL.net Uses Partnerships to Market to Small
Businesses
COMPANY: DSL.net provides DSL services sell only to
small and mid-sized businesses. It’s a crowded
marketplace with lots of providers, so DSL.Net needed a
way to stand out.
CAMPAIGN
Partnerships with organizations small business
people already trust are definitely the way to go.
DSL.net partnered with the US Federation of Small
Business to offer DSL services to over 12,000 USFSB
members. The campaign included a direct mail campaign to
USFSB members as well as an integrated section at the
USFSB Web site.
COST: Although DSL.net couldn’t provide specific cost
details, the did say that in many of their joint
marketing efforts, they either pay a stipend or provide
some type of discount or other benefit to the
organization for sales generated from their membership.
Basically this sounds like a gloried affiliate program,
requiring a business development person’s time but few
up-front costs beyond direct mail campaign production.
With lists pitched in for free from the partner, a
personalized member campaign can cost as little as 50
cents per piece.
RESULTS
This works so well that DSL.net is aggressively
building more partnerships. Current alliances include
deals with ADP, American Express Travel, Microsoft,
Staples and others.
The USFSB is also rolling out the partnerships, having
done deals with more than 20 partners including Alamo
Rent-a-car, National Revenue Corporation, Sprint, NEBS,
Airborne Express … and (of course) a free Web site
service!
http://www.usfsb.com
http://www.dsl.net
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: OneCore’s Rebecca Thomas
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It’s hard enough to break through the noise and market
effectively to small businesses online these days.
Imagine if your job was not only to reach them -- but to
convince them to change the way they do business!
Founded in 1998, OneCore helps businesses to manage
financial activities such as cash management, payroll,
credit and merchant services through one central online
account. We spoke with Rebecca Thomas, OneCore’s
marketing guru to find out how her campaigns convince
small businesspeople to transfer all those services
online.
Q: What kind of education process do you have to do to
get small biz to think of banking in new ways?
Thomas: A key part of OneCore's current message is to
convince businesses that banking online is easy. However,
an even greater challenge is getting them to look at
OneCore the same way they look at their current financial
institutions - and convince them that we are a reliable,
trustworthy financial institution.
To reassure Members, we protect their funds up to $100
million, including Securities Investor Protection
Corporation (SIPC) coverage of $500,000 (cash claims
limited to $100,000) and Travelers Insurance coverage of
$99.5 million.
OneCore also establishes a feeling of trust through our
highly trained Member Support Team. They provide fast,
personalized service to Members who may have a question
or problem with the account or service(s) they are using.
Q: Can you give us some more details on your member
support team? How does it work and how many of your
members use it?
Thomas: Our Member Support team is accessible by phone,
email and a sophisticated in-house, Internet-based
“workbasket system” that tracks the request from original
request to completion. A OneCore Member simply fills out
a Request Assistance form online and it gets routed right
to Member Support. Live OneCore Member Support
Representatives are available Monday-Friday 8am to 6 pm.
During business hours all requests are responded to
within 2 hours of receipt!
To date about 50% of the OneCore Member base utilize the
Member Support service. All Member Support professionals
are in-house and have several years experience in the
financial service industry. We will soon implement a CRM
tool to augment our workbasket system.
Q: What are some of the marketing techniques you’re using
to get all these small business members in the first
place?
Thomas: OneCore actually has two Web sites - there's the
marketing site that prospects see and the Member site
where OneCore customers conduct their financial
transactions. We attract traffic to our marketing site
through a combination of banner advertising, print,
radio, pr, direct mail, e-mail and links from marketing
partners' sites.
To date it seems that online marketing, in particular
email campaigns and insertions in e-newsletters, are the
best acquisition tool as well as co-branded promotions
with partners. The more targeted the audience and the
more targeted the promotion or message, the better the
results. We expect to utilize more online initiatives
going forward.
An area tested that will be dropped is television
advertising. That did not provide satisfactory results.
Q: Partnerships seem to be one of the major ways most
people are making to small businesses these days. What
is OnceCore doing on that front? And do you use the word
“partnership” for a media buy or is it something more?
Thomas: We’ve established critical online and off-line
marketing partnerships leading small business providers
including: EarthLink, eCongo, Bigstep, Concentric
Network, Netopia, OfficeMax.com, The Company Corporation,
HotOffice, HOTBIZ, BizBuyer, Smart Online, Works.com,
Peachtree Software, NetLedger, PaineWebber, USAccess
Bank, Inc.com, Entrepreneur.com and Webforia.com.
All OneCore partnerships are created with an eye on true
partnership, not pure advertising. To date, none of the
partnerships are only media buys. Prominent partnerships
such as OfficeMax, PeachTree and Earthlink include co-
branded sites with some level of integration.
In addition, we've developed the Network Advisor Program
targeting CPAs, financial advisors and other individuals
who count small business owners as their clients and
provide them with advice or recommendations. Through this
network these advisors can introduce their clients and
prospects to OneCore.
Q: So you get financial advisors to pitch their small
business clients on using OneCore? That’s brilliant!
How do you do it?
Thomas: The Program was designed both to help small
business advisors secure existing client relationships as
well as attract new ones. OneCore is a value-added
service that CPAs and other advisors can offer to their
clients that has real benefits in terms of convenience
and control. It also helps the advisor establish
him/herself as on the cutting-edge of Internet
technology. Since many small businesses are beginning to
incorporate the Web in their daily activity, this gives
advisors a shortcut to get there first.
In terms of outreach, it has been done through a direct
sales force, referrals and soon we'll be launching a
print campaign in Dow Jones Investment Advisor, CPA
Journal and Financial Planning magazines.
Network Advisor clients tend to be more established
companies with higher account balances and the propensity
to add more services such as payroll and 401(k).
http://www.onecore.com
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MarketingToSmallBiz.com INFO
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703.845.1141
Editorial Contact:
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editor@MarketingToSmallBiz.com
Publisher:
Anne Holland
anneh@MarketingSherpa.com
202.232.6830
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