What Will Impact Marketing to SMBs in 2010?

Much like 2009, 2010 will have several things weighing heavily on small business owners that will make marketing to this audience challenging. Here is just three issues that will have small businesses distracted:

1) Finding customers. Each year, small businesses are concerned about finding customers and making sales. In 2010, this will continue to be a chief concern and with less customers, spending less, small businesses have fewer resources for purchasing goods, services and new technologies.

2) Navigating Washington. The health care bill is one issue while the minimum wage increase is another concern for small business owners. 2010 will continue to have small business owners trying to figure out new regulations and the impact/cost to their business. Basically, when small business owners believe there will be cost associated with regulation, it can have a paralyzing effect on their actions.

3) Access to capital. Even with the administration's appeal to large and community banks, lending still has been problematic and SBA loans still hard to come by. With tighter financial resources, it becomes harder to market services to small business owners.

This doesn't mean that small businesses with halt all purchases, but it does mean that the savvy marketer will understand and empathize with this audience. You will need to speak to this audience with full recognition of the challenging confronting this group.

What do you think?