Small businesses identified by the number of employees they have. The following are criteria of a small business:
- financing for the business provided by one individual or only a few individuals;
- business’s operations are geographically localized, except for its marketing function (may not hold true for online businesses, but nevertheless);
- the number of employees in the business is usually fewer then hundred.
Small businesses in USA, according to Small Business Administration:
- represent more then 99.7 percent of all employers;
- employ more then half of all private-sector employees;
- pay 44.5 percent of total US private payrolls;
- generate between 60 and 80 percent of net new jobs annually;
- produce 14 times more patents per employee then do large patenting firms.
Nevertheless, small businesses have very limited means of self-promotion, comparing to the big guys in the industry. However, just like big guys, they can promote themselves in fashions that are both affordable and efficient. For example, for local retailers an online promotion of their web site would not do any good.
Most of our clients are small businesses. They often share some insights on how offline promotion helps them save or make money. One of the ideas they came up with was to print address labels and mail remainders of their dealer promotion packages to the potential customers instead of dealers. Receiving an attractive custom-printed brochure, booklet or wall calendar can make all the difference for some. Printing of cheap address labels was made very affordable by online merchants and local print shops and company has already invested in printing those promotional packages anyway. Idea was a huge success, and such mailings became one of the favorite promotional tools of this company.