Local Search Consultants: Best to Target Small or Medium Businesses?

[getphound]

We're soon launching a decent size initiative to ~15,000+ businesses in three industries (in a 50 mile radius): home services, lawyers, and medical practices.

My question is regarding a debate I've been having, specifically with the lawyers and medical practices.

The debate, specifically, is whether to target small (less than 500K revenue) or medium (500K+ revenue) businesses.

The packages we're offering are very reasonable and revolve some of our primary services such as website management and social media marketing. Packages generally are in the $250-500/month range.

There are pros and cons to targeting the small as well as the medium, but I want to start with one.

Which would you choose and why?

Thanks for your input.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks so much for posting Kali. That's a great question!

Due to RSI pain I can't reply right now, plus don't have a good answer for this question.
However hopefully some of the Local Search consultants here will reply.

I'll Tweet for you to try to get some insights. Hardly anyone is online here on weekends though, so will try to remember to Tweet it tomorrow for you if we don't get any replies by then.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Just Tweeted to see if we can get a good discussion going around this for you, Kali.

Thanks for asking a great question!

(I can't mouse with either hand now, so am trying to get used to a Trackball +
MOUSE CLICKING WITH MY FOOT. And trying to retrain Dragon all at the same time.
So I'm not even going to try to write a book to share my thoughts like I normally would.)


What do you guys think?

 

[HoosierBuff]

A few quick thoughts:

1. I would hope that the price is different for the medium sized businesses vs. the small businesses. There can be a real big difference between those two groups, they may need different things, or one may require more services than the other.

2. I think a lot of this decision depends on how you are acquiring customers. Is it a sales force? Is it online? Is it a call center?

Both of those verticals get a lot of attention. There are a lot of different people offering solutions there . . . yet, so many are in need of help. The trouble with the small offices is that they are cheap, and the bigger offices are slower to decide and then demanding (too many cooks).

I think a lot of this depends on your model.

 

[leadjoint]

Personally I prefer the local small over the medium businesses. The buyers' mindset of both these businesses are typically the same (like budget constraints, not too aware of how SEO works, asking for guarantees, etc.). But small business segments (like local services) have typically lower competition and so is easier to rank with the budget they afford.

Medium business segments have higher competition and is sometimes difficult to show results in the timeframe they expect to see changes. Not that it is not manageable, but for my own sanity, I prefer to work with the smaller local businesses.