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MasterCard - Small Business Means Big Business

When your product or service becomes commoditized, you’ve got to add value in order to keep your customers and grow your business. You’ve got to make a connection.

Imagination helped MasterCard do just that by refining an existing site for small business customers. The financial services company wanted to be seen as an advisor, a resource and a partner in small businesses success. The goal: increase the number of small business owners who use MasterCard small business products.

Imagination worked with MasterCard to refine the Small Business site and meet the following objectives:

• Create awareness about MasterCard’s small business products and services
• Create preference for MasterCard’s products over competitors products and consumer credit cards
• Increase the traffic on the Small Business site

The Right Content

Small business owners are experts in the products and services they provide, but many are uncomfortable with other aspects of running a business: finances, accounting, long- and short- term strategy, creating and updating their business plans, growth, managing their employees, etc. Cash flow, health care and insurance costs are major challenges for many small businesses.

Imagination produces the right mix of content: articles and podcasts about reducing costs, managing cash flow and boosting profits.

Metrics Matter

In Spring 2007, Imagination refined and re-launched the MasterCard Small Business site based on metrics and other forms of user feedback. The new version of the site positioned the most popular features prominently. Features such as Find a Card, Special Offers, Business Essentials Library content and podcasts were moved higher on the site and more points of entry were created.

After metrics showed that Finance & Accounting was one of the site’s most popular sections, more content was devoted to that section.

Being able to locate content easily also is important. Imagination organized the MasterCard Small Business podcasts in three categories: Feature Story, a recording from the writer’s interview with an article source; Finance, which covers financial topics ranging from selling equity to attracting investment; and Small Business Management, devoted to other issues such as the importance of conducting routine competitive analysis.

Results

MasterCard made significant gains in achieving the objectives of boosting site traffic and increasing awareness about MasterCard products and services. In 2007, rich media visits were up 757%, homepage traffic rose by 322%, special offers traffic increased by 71%, and the overall small business site traffic accounts for more than 50% of the total mastercardbusiness.com site traffic.

As more people turn to MasterCard for guidance on running their small businesses, MasterCard will be top of mind and readily accessible.

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