Drilling for Gold, settling for pyrite.

• Position: Marketing News

If handled properly, small business is a gold mine for banks. If it isn't handled properly, you could be throwing away your marketing money.

John Warrillow, founder and CEO of a strategy and research firm specializing in the small-business market, thinks corporations often misunderstand small businesses and, consequently, spend millions of dollars on marketing campaigns that miss the mark.

In the first place, says Warrillow, there isn't a single small-business market. There are, rather, several markets, many of which have little in common with the others. If you want to reach some segment of the small-business universe, you need to focus on the segment you're after. Learn what they need and what they don't need and what they don't need.

"For example, according to the Census Bureau, of the 21 million companies in the United States, 74 percent do not have employees," he says. "That means they have no need for multiextension phones, group benefits, office space or server-class computers. If a marketer of these products defines the small-business market as companies with less than 50 employees, the campaign will target nearly 15 million companies that will not be interested."

Further, Warriltow says, most small businesses are sole proprietorships, which don't need--and probably couldn't use--services such as retirement plans or direct deposit.

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