

Ask HN: What is best strategy for selling a new product to SMB? - aml183


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Gustomaximus
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?

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

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ianstallings
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.

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danieltillett
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
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
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.

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a_lifters_life
Your first big hurdle will be educating the SMB.

