Developing a mid-market strategy for your enterprise product/service

The mid-market is an unfulfilled market opportunity for many vendors that serve enterprise segments. Rethinking the needs of the mid-market can improve a vendor’s chances of succeeding with smaller customers.

The mid-market challenge

As enterprise markets mature, vendors look to the mid-market as a growth opportunity that looks primed for entry.  Many enterprise vendors enjoy strong brand awareness and the mid-market views enterprise products/services as the “Cadillac” that’s out of reach. The mid-market knows that enterprise-class products provide more capabilities than what they use today and agrees that these extra capabilities provide value.

Given these market conditions, Sales finds it easy to get sales calls and schedule demos. The mid-market likes the attention from premium providers. However, these interactions often don’t lead to as many sales as expected.

Many enterprise vendors frame the problem as a Sales and Marketing challenge, where the mid-market just doesn’t understand the value of the solution, but with the right message or sales process, they could be made to see the light.  This is misleading – a range of factors prevent the mid-market from upgrading to enterprise class solutions, even if they would like to do so.

Lessons from BMW

Although BMW is a consumer brand, its experience moving from the luxury market to the mass market offers relevant lessons for enterprise vendors seeking to grow in the mid-market.

BMW possesses considerable brand equity: Most consumers are aware of it, view it as a premium product, and acknowledge that it produces a higher quality vehicle than say, Chevy and Ford. Unfortunately for BMW, despite this brand equity, the market for luxury cars is finite. BMW’s mid-market opportunity for growth is the average consumer. BMW recognizes that it cannot gain sales with average consumers by emphasizing its quality or advantages in its sales and marketing. Consumers don’t need to be convinced of its quality or how it is better than what they drive today – they already know.

Marketing campaigns can attract a small sub-segment of average consumers willing to stretch their budgets to enter the luxury segment. However, this low hanging fruit doesn’t represent an opportunity for sustained growth.

BMW recognizes that price is the limiting factor and has implemented multiple strategies to make its vehicles more appealing and feasible for its mid-market with varying levels of success.  These include:

  • Offering competitive financing
  • Leasing vehicles at a monthly rate average consumers can afford
  • Cultivating a used BMW market
  • Introducing lower-priced models for entry level buyers

BMW’s mass market challenges seem obvious, and they are. What’s less obvious is that these same dynamics unfold in the B2B mid-market when it evaluates enterprise-scaled solutions. The mid-market’s barriers include:

  • Budget limitations: The mid-market faces greater near-term financial constraints than enterprise markets and while they understand ROI arguments, in the short term they simply do not have the budget available.
  • Resources to execute: Even if they have the budget many mid-market organizations lack the people or processes needed to take advantage of the features/functionality of robust solutions designed for the enterprise. This reduces ROI arguments.
  • Limited needs: Many mid-market organizations do not have enough volume of data, transactions, production, throughput, etc. to require a robust solution, again reducing the ROI argument.

Strategies for the mid-market

One approach to addressing these barriers follows BMW’s lead and asks: How can we make the product/service affordable/feasible for the mid-market? Options to consider for the mid-market strategy include:

  • Lowering prices: Can prices be lowered enough to attract mid-market customers? This is the simplest strategy, but also the least appealing – modest price cuts typically do not attract meaningful number of the mid-market and leaves money on the table from enterprises that would have continued to pay the higher price.
  • Pricing structure: Can the upfront cost be reduced by tying it to usage, number of users, or some other factor that scales along with the size of the customer. The growth of cloud applications in enterprise technology is due in large part to the short-term cost structure that enables organizations to rent software they would not be able to buy outright.
  • Develop smaller solutions: Can the product/service be scaled down to align with the functionality the mid-market uses and the budgets they have available? This could be offering scaled down version or developing a new brand altogether.
  • Help customers use the solution: Can programs, trainings, etc. be developed that would help customers grow into the solution? Some mid-market organizations need help envisioning how they could use a robust solution, and the steps they would take to make it work, etc.

These strategies do not come without risk. Lowering pricing and offering scaled down options may increase interest within the mid-market, but may also cannibalize enterprise customers willing to accept less if they can lower their costs.

Determining which of these strategies makes the most sense for any given market requires insights into four broad areas:

  • The core features/functionality used by the mid-market today
  • Their resources and processes
  • Barriers to change
  • What they pay today

Developing market insights

These insights can be collected in a number of ways including.

  • Competitor analysis: Vendors that specialize in the mid-market have identified its core needs and general price tolerance.
  • Sales reps: Sales reps have direct contact with prospects and can also provide feedback into the aspects of the solution that generate the most interest, why deal stumble, etc.
  • Primary research: Primary research can provide direct feedback from the market in terms of its needs, solutions it uses, willingness to invest in new solutions, etc.

In the end the most important thing to remember when entering the mid-market is that it is different than the enterprise market. The businesses aren’t just smaller, they face a different set of needs and limitations. Understanding those differences can greatly improve your chances of success.