Many small businesses have products and services that are pitched at various levels inside organizations. Most the time all of the effort and messaging is focused on that buyer, division, or purchasing agent.

While this is a necessary approach if you are to make the sale, you can’t ignore other layers in the environment.

You should also have a strategy aimed squarely at creating awareness and education focused on the ultimate decision makers for most companies – the CEO. What the CEO cares about and what the purchasing agent cares about will often differ, but it’s a good bet the purchasing agent will care if the CEO cares. At the very least, you make your job much easier if the CEO knows who you are and what you bring that’s unique.

You must take care not to step on toes with this approach but if you produce much higher level industry type information, even if unrelated to your product, and make that information easily available, say through a custom RSS feed, you might be on your way to a great 1-2 punch.