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Only 5% of major marketers think small businesses like them.

According to 2014 research by the CMO Council, 75% of major marketers who sell to small businesses say such customers are "extremely important" to their company. But only 5% of those major marketers believe small businesses view big brands “very positively.”*

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We have great news for the other 95%.

For the past quarter-century, Hammock Inc., the customer media company that owns and manages the SmallBusiness.com Content Studio, has helped clients like OfficeMax and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) use highly customized content to add value to their products and services and to build deep and long lasting relationships with men and women who own and run small businesses.

Along the way, we've learned several things that can help marketers at big businesses communicate more effectively with buyers at small businesses. We're now happy to share those lessons with you.

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How we can help you connect with small businesses.

Here are some things we can do that will help you simplify reaching, selling to, and building a long term relationship with small business owners and managers:

  • Save time and money by advising you how to focus your resources on the specific customer media and content small business decision-makers seek from your company and brand.
  • Focus your efforts on what will grow customer loyalty and long-term relationships--and not on one-and-done transactions.
  • Understand the process small business decision-makers follow to discover, research and decide to purchase products and services like yours.
  • Prioritize the must-have, must-do content and social media tools your small business customers need to reach the outcome you promised when they purchased your product.
  • Develop content and implement approaches that will add value to your product and an edge over your competition.
  • Discover the post-purchase content most valued when a small business manager transitions from customer to owner.
  • Create and manage a customer media and content management platform, process and collaborative workflow that has been developed over the past two decades by serving people exactly like you.
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We're a small business that works with hundreds of other small businesses.

Our ability to help you comes from the experience of being a small business that has, over the course of 23 years, built a network of over 400 independent and small-studio creators who write, edit, design, photograph, produce, develop, code, illustrate, research, manage and pioneer new ways to use the ever-changing tools and approaches made possible by new technology and emerging channels of distribution. During the past two decades, our editorial network has interviewed more than 10,000 small business owners that have appeared in the custom media we've created specifically for our clients. No matter where your needs are, chances are we have a creator with "boots on the ground" nearby.

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We're SmallBusiness.com.

We don't just depend on our 23 years of experience, however. Our ability to help you also comes from what we learn daily through a constant conversation with the small business owners and managers we serve through the network of small business media related to SmallBusiness.com (including, the SmallBusiness.com/WIKI, @smallbusiness on Twitter, pinterest.com/smallbusiness).

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Warning: You can't build a premium brand and deep customer relationships with commodity content.

We work with clients on specific challenges and opportunities. WE ARE NOT a content farm or a service that merely aggregates commodity content from wire-services. Our media and content services focus exclusively on helping tell your specific story, serving your specific customers' needs, adding value to your specific products and services. While we can source and manage your needs for various types of content, our focus is on the creation and management of long-term customer-relationship-building media and content programs.

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How to start.

We can have a short talk: We still know how to use a telephone, so rather than trying to guess whether or not we provide the kind of help you're looking for, you can simply call us and we can have a quick conversation about what you're trying to accomplish. (Call Steve Sullivan at 615-690-3427 or email him at [email protected]).

We can have a longer conversation: Did that first phone conversation start okay? If so, you and we likely will talk a little longer and suggest some next-steps to take (see below).

We can make a presentation: If we agree on next steps, we will be glad to share with you (online or in person) a presentation that will change the way you think about marketing to small business decision makers.