Small businesses are more likely than large companies to buy from direct marketers, according to the 2005 Abacus Business-to-Business Industry Insights Report from Broomfield, CO-based marketing services provider Abacus.
Small businesses (defined as companies with 1-49 employees) accounted for 67% of all business purchases from direct merchants on the Abacus B2B Alliance cooperative database in 2004, for a spend total of $2.7 billion. Large businesses (companies with more than 100 employees) came in second, representing 25% of total sales, with mid-sized businesses (49-100 employees) accounting for 8% of sales.
What’s more, the Report found that small businesses were also the most likely to respond to offers. Last year, 29% of all small business contacts made a purchase, compared to 21% of mid-size company contacts and 19% of large business contacts.
Despite the benefits of marketing to small businesses, bigger can in some cases be better. The Abacus Report indicates that purchases from large businesses were on average twice as valuable and twice as large as purchases from small businesses.