Marketing to the American entrepreneur: Insights and trends from mass‐market print magazine advertising

At the marketing/entrepreneurship interface, most research concerns how entrepreneurs market their businesses, rather than how advertisers market to entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to address this gap.

The authors undertake a content analysis of 88 recent issues of the two largest print magazine titles targeted at American entrepreneurs, with particular attention to advertising content for known small business success factors.

This study finds no correlation between factors most important to small business success and advertising volume. However, this study finds a strong, inverse correlation between US small business performance for each success factors and the volume of advertising for that competitiveness factor. Finally, it is found that advertisement characteristics (placement, timing, repetition, contact channel, and competitor comparison) vary by competitiveness factor.

This study is limited to print advertising to US entrepreneurs. The findings imply that small business competitiveness factors may need to be amended, and that the nature of advertising to small businesses should be further investigated.

The ability to identify shortcomings in what small businesses need to succeed may spur advertisers to remedy the gap with product promotions that create awareness of need solutions.

This study is the first to use content analysis of B2B print advertising targeted at entrepreneurs to develop insights into the nature of the target market (US entrepreneurs); to explore the extent to which advertised goods and services match needs of the target market; and to examine whether advertisers communicate the various factors that address target market needs, in different manners.