This analysis is painfully similar to the last (start-up?) company for which I worked.
A huge chunk of my time in client acquisition was first dedicated to education. Things like impressions, clicks, CTR, and god forbid CPM are all jargon to most small business owners. Further, the concepts of geo-targeting or limiting delivery rates while possibly advantageous just make this first step a problem of too many choices. They wanted to be able to open the site (like opening a newspaper) and know they would see their ad and pay a fixed amount.
The second problem was then the same that we consistently see on Hacker News about pricing. Because it is a digital medium, shop owners expect the price to be much cheaper than that brick called the yellow pages.
Looking back, I can't blame the SmB owners for their resistance to give me their money. If I owned a small business, I would much rather use the money to help fund some community event or provide discounts to loyal customers. I personally believe that SmB owners are better served avoiding most traditional advertising and instead creating ways to better interact on a personal level with their community/city.
The only exception I can think of are artists. It would be really beautiful if all the medium rectangles and half-pages were tasteful ads for galleries. If that were the case, I would definitely turn off Adblock again.
The education component is where the disruption comes in. We have a solid business selling phone calls. Our sales pitch is "we make your phone ring and you really never have to worry about it."
SMB's get it and we don't need to educate them at all.
A huge chunk of my time in client acquisition was first dedicated to education. Things like impressions, clicks, CTR, and god forbid CPM are all jargon to most small business owners. Further, the concepts of geo-targeting or limiting delivery rates while possibly advantageous just make this first step a problem of too many choices. They wanted to be able to open the site (like opening a newspaper) and know they would see their ad and pay a fixed amount.
The second problem was then the same that we consistently see on Hacker News about pricing. Because it is a digital medium, shop owners expect the price to be much cheaper than that brick called the yellow pages.
Looking back, I can't blame the SmB owners for their resistance to give me their money. If I owned a small business, I would much rather use the money to help fund some community event or provide discounts to loyal customers. I personally believe that SmB owners are better served avoiding most traditional advertising and instead creating ways to better interact on a personal level with their community/city.
The only exception I can think of are artists. It would be really beautiful if all the medium rectangles and half-pages were tasteful ads for galleries. If that were the case, I would definitely turn off Adblock again.