BW Online | August 4, 2000 | Are You an "Evangelist" or an "Integrator"?

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AUGUST 4, 2000

TECHNOLOGY

Are You an "Evangelist" or an "Integrator"?
New research finds small businesses' attitudes toward using the Web vary greatly

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As Aurelia Okino sees it, the Chicago real estate brokerage she manages doesn't have a choice when it comes to the Web. Without an online presence, she fears losing sales to rivals. And paper brochures are no match for surfable listings. "I don't think we can do it without the Internet," says Okino. "It has become a necessity."

Whether motivated by fear of competition or the promise of future returns, thousands of small businesses have reached the same conclusion in recent years. From 1996 to 1998, the number of them with some online presence jumped from 21% to 41%, according to the Small Business Administration. More recent measures put the figure at 70%, and the federal agency predicts that by next year, 83% of U.S. small businesses will be online.

But what's behind those figures? And what does e-commerce truly mean in the context of the country's 7.5 million small businesses? New research by Roper Starch Worldwide offers some answers.

One key finding: In the New Economy, just like the Old, one-size-fits-all marketing strategies are doomed to fail. "There are different ways that people think about how to use this tool, or medium, and the way they think about it is reflected in what they do," says Don Passaglia, vice-president of Roper's California office.

To identify those differences, Roper polled 1,229 businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Roper took the respondents' answers to 52 questions and with AllBusiness.com (which paid for the poll) devised six categories describing how and why (or why not) businesses turn to the Web today.

Accelerators embrace the Web in all its promise, seeing it as both the basis of new products and a tool for rapid growth.

Administrators go online to save time and money, performing tasks such as payroll or ordering supplies.

Evangelists see the Web primarily as another medium for sales and marketing.

Integrators use it for networking with employees, customers, and other businesses.

E-traditionalists dabble on the Web but haven't yet harnessed it to their advantage.

Offliners see little benefit in the technology, with 60% saying they prefer a "simpler way of doing business."

The survey shows that a majority of small businesses are just dipping their toes into e-commerce. Of the companies surveyed, 27% fell into the e-traditionalist category, which was the largest group. Among them was L.J. Sheridan & Co., the Chicago brokerage firm managed by Okino, which plans to launch a Web site next month. Okino says she also uses the Internet to research office supplies, but before placing an order she prefers to "talk to someone in person and have a contact."

Despite the great interest in the Web and the high percentage of companies that are online, a lack of Web sophistication isn't terribly surprising, says Melissa Shore, who tracks small-business trends for Jupiter Communications. "Embracing the Internet in your business can be quite a difficult thing to do" she says.

Among the other groups defined by the survey, offliners ranked second (18% of the respondents), followed by accelerators (16%), evangelists (15%), and administrators and integrators (tied at 12% each).

TEXTBOOKISH. So how are such labels useful? For one thing, the segmentation approach -- long a tool of consumer marketing -- can help companies doing business over the Internet refine their sales strategies. "The way you talk to an evangelist is going to be very different from the way you talk to an e-traditionalist or accelerator," says Teymour Boutros-Ghali, CEO of AllBusiness.com, a content site for small business. And while identifying customers by their use of the Internet may seem a logical step, marketing strategies are more often based on factors such as customer size or industry.

But few, if any, companies are likely to identify themselves by their spot along the e-commerce spectrum. Or by labels that smack of textbookish marketing lingo. So how can a company that wants to do business over the Internet tell an evangelist from an integrator? One idea would be to let potential customers rate themselves through a mini-quiz, or choose scenarios that most resemble their situation. The answers would then guide them to paths on the site offering different services and levels of interactivity.

"Small-business owners are always very curious about where they stack up by comparison," says Shore. Who knows? Such tools might even prove to be an attraction themselves.