In the wake of COVID-19, B2B companies have finally recognized online platforms as an important part of their communications, marketing and sales arsenal. At the same time, the rapid increase in the number of various platforms raised the question of optimizing actions in the online space – because not all of them give the expected effect. Globally, this problem is well known under the name “platform fatigue”. This issue is especially acute for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which have practically no resources to support activities on numerous platforms.

Details of the “Platform Fatigue” case

We can clearly see manifestation of these problematic issues in the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance (UCA), including in APPAU. Together, UCA unites more than 50 cluster-type organizations, which together include more than 2,000 enterprises. Clusters try to provide them with networking, matchmaking, fundraising, etc. services using a number of platforms:

• Land4Developers Marketplace – serves as a promotion for Industry 4.0 innovators and OT-IT system integrators.
• The exhibition platform Ukrainian Brave Business (UBB) – APPAU had 65 places for participants of its association, as well as EAM clusters.
• The EIF grants marketplace platform, where you can quickly find an expert or an innovative SME.
• The European Enterprise Network (EEN) platform is the largest database of SMEs in the world and serves to search for potential customers.
• The clusters themselves use the ECCP platform (European Cluster Collaboration Platform), which is an information hub, knowledge base and serves for matchmaking between clusters.
• The B2B Match platform is #1 for matchmaking of clusters and SMEs in the EU and is often used as a platform for events (here is an example of an event in March).

And this is only what we use at UCA. There are others related, such as Nazovni, Diya (EEPO), Haluzevi, FundingBox, ECCP, F6S, EU calls, etc.

In other words, the advantage of using different platforms has a downside – you need to pay attention to them, otherwise there will be no results. An example of this is the UBB platform – APPAU was forced to abandon continuation of this project, although a lot of resources were invested in it – donor, developer, several associations and, ultimately, SMEs. There are several reasons:

• Low level of involvement as exhibition participants: during the month of the promotion, we attracted only 24 companies against the plan of 65. The small number of participants of the virtual exhibition sharply reduces the chances of potential buyers visiting it.
• The absence or low quality of the content of the companies already involved in the stands. The vast majority of them do not have high-quality modern content that would be interesting to visitors – and, first of all, we are talking about visual content.

Thus, in this example, we see that the use of platforms implies presence of a target resource to support one or another online channel. In principle, this is the same problem that was previously observed on online resources of many SMEs – the quality of their websites, social media pages, etc. leaves much to be desired. In some cases, the question can be asked even more radically – “if SMEs are unable to maintain their own website, how will they maintain their presence on 3-5 other sites?”. The 2021 ClusteRISE project report acutely raises the issue of low export marketing capabilities of SMEs as a key problem.

However, such generalizations are inappropriate for those companies that still have 1-2 marketing specialists and manage their own resources quite well. Instead, as soon as it comes to the external, other factors and rules come into force – and in this, more complex context, “platform fatigue” can really set in. You have to fill out your company profiles over and over again, keep up with updates, respond to meeting requests, etc., and when there’s a lot of it and the results aren’t there or aren’t obvious, motivation drops dramatically over time.

Therefore, on the one hand, we have a variety of platforms that provide access to new opportunities, provide good online visibility of your company, and in general, we are talking about a very low price for leads. On the other hand, systematically receiving a flow of leads or potential partners requires resources and separate efforts, which SMEs are not ready for.

Do similar platforms even work for SMEs?

A similar question may arise for any SME manager after reading the above. The answer is “Definitely yes!” But – with the right approaches. Within the framework of UСA, good examples are cases from the Ukrainian Association of Furniture Manufacturers, which we have repeatedly promoted at various events, see the case description in our white book “10 Top B2B Marketing Trends”. Another good example is the Ukrainian Food Platform – a platform created in the U-Food cluster in 2020 for food enterprises. Bohdan Shapoval, head of the cluster, says that today it generates 10 requests from different countries of the world almost every day. Specialists of the cluster process the requests and then pass them on to the enterprises subscribed to the service.

“A year ago, it was difficult for us to attract food industry enterprises, but now the situation has changed. Our subscribers are completely satisfied and eager to continue cooperation, because our platform generates a flow of potential customers for them – efficiently and inexpensively.” (Bohdan Shapoval, U-Food).

Another successful case is the EEN-Ukraine consortium. Experienced specialists of the consortium (which today includes APPAU) say that in previous years, dozens of Ukrainian SMEs found their foreign clients through the EEN platform.

After all, we at APPAU have our own experience. Successful cluster relations with the clusters of the Czech Republic, and which are today a benchmark role model in the UCA, began in 2021 precisely with getting to know the representatives of the Czech Republic on the B2B Match platform. Thanks to the development of these relations, UCA won three important forums in the Czech Republic by 2023, with the financial support of the Czech government (the total amount is estimated at 40 thousand euros). In other words, this is a direct help to our SMEs to enter foreign markets, and this happened, among other things, thanks to the contacts received at the time from similar platforms.

You can also take the examples of our members – a large part of searching for Industry 4.0, publishing useful content, including own promotion takes place on the EIF platform, and participants apply for grants through others such as funding.box. And the results of activity for 2022 in 700+ thousand euros speak for themselves.

Therefore, there is no doubt that platforms are useful and even necessary today for many categories of SMEs. After all, traditional methods, such as participation in foreign exhibitions or conferences, have a lot of limitations, especially for companies where men are a majority.

The whole question is how to optimize work with platforms, taking into account the limited resources of companies.

Approaches to the solution

These issues are complex and they were discussed at the UCA special expert meeting on February 10. The recording can be viewed here, and here is the main presentation, which accumulates the results of expert surveys and proposals.

Multi-platform optimization.pdf from APPAU_Ukraine

The participants of the meeting jointly stated that the use of various platforms to achieve certain goals (as well as any other marketing and sales tools) is a conscious strategic decision of the SMEs’ management. That is, the systematic approach involves first clearly setting the goals of internationalization and export, and then defining the means and tools for achieving the goals. For example, if the goal is to find partners in innovative consortia, then obviously the EEN-Ukraine platform will be the best tool for this. If you have the problem of entering the expert environment of Industry 4.0 and quickly getting a grant for your development, the platform and, more broadly, the EIF development program will suit you. If you just want to generate leads, that’s what Land4Developers Marketplace is for. Therefore, first the goals – then the means.

Next, we talked about the fact that coordinators of clusters or specialized projects-consortia, such as EEN-Ukraine, are ready to serve almost every SME. High-quality support from the service team that serves the platform is the #1 factor in solving the issue of small resources of SMEs. The cases of UCA, U-Food, EEN – they are all about this. Thanks to the provision of their own resources, the teams of these projects were able to scale services to a large number of SMEs. Actually, APPAU is also moving in this direction, 2 our specialists today serve inclusion of our members to the EEN platform (and where there are 10+ specialists from other consortium partners), and we have allocated 3 managers to Land4Developers. Of course, all this requires financing, and this is precisely the reason for our rejection of the UBB project, where we did not find such financing.

Therefore, the 3 key success factors to optimize your path to successful use of platforms are as follows:

1. Choose platforms that have high-quality expert support tailored to your industry.
2. Define clear goals, ways to achieve them and a specific action plan. This immediately seeks to determine the role and place of one or another platform as a means of implementation.
3. Focus on teamwork with specialists of the platform’s service team, and allocate at least 1 specialist for this. The division of roles and functions is the first and necessary step in this approach.

Following these approaches will greatly simplify and optimize the use of different platforms, increase their usage and improve the bottom line.

Step-by-step instructions for APPAU members

For its members, APPAU offers a more adapted, step-by-step methodology based on the specified factors. This is also due to the presence of the development strategy for 2023, which clearly states our collective goals and objectives in the fields of export, internationalization and fundraising. Accordingly, this general strategy and the individual tools already offered in it simplify and specify your path as a member of the Association. Therefore:

Copy Appendix 2 in the given strategy and define your own goals and objectives in it.

Together with the APPAU management, determine measures and support tools that will be useful for achieving your goals (contact O. Yurchak).

Identify a specialist who will be responsible for working with platforms (and other tools) with the APPAU service team.

Together with the APPAU team, perform an audit of the content that traditionally goes to online channels. Divide the task of improving it into 2 categories:

Optimize the company profile, which is traditionally required everywhere as the #1 tool (here is a template for filling it out).

Identify other tools required for pitching, which is most often used in first meetings on platforms. This is usually a 10-slide presentation and a video about your company or product. If these things do not exist, it is necessary to plan their creation.

Start posting your profile (item 4a) together with APPAU specialists on the EEN platform and the nearest events of this platform, as well as clusters. Our experts will tell you about these events and recommend the most relevant ones.

Following these steps and scaling the information about your company and products will ensure a reliable flow of leads and finding new partners.