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Case Studies

Customer Overview

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) serves millions of small businesses. The SBA was designated as the managing partner of a cross-agency federal project to develop Business.gov, the official business link to the U.S. Government. SBA hired JDG Communications to help establish Business.gov as a one-stop resource for federal compliance information.

Project Overview

JDG's work with Business.gov focused on two areas: redesigning the look and adjusting content of the website to better serve the needs of businesses, and creating greater awareness of Business.gov's new resources among target audiences.

Audiences

Business.gov's primary audience consists of the business community, particularly small businesses that comprise 99.7% of the nation's 24.5 million businesses. Secondary audiences include trade and business media and other partner federal agencies.

Challenges

Two major challenges faced the SBA and JDG. Focus groups with businesses revealed that content on the Business.gov site was too general, and many members of the primary target audience—the business community—did not know about or use Business.gov.

Solution

JDG developed a program for Business.gov that included:

• Redesigning Business.gov as a one-stop online resource for compliance information, federal forms, and compliance contacts. This effort also required a new "look and feel" that would distinguish it from SBA and other government websites.
• Creating an integrated public awareness campaign that included media relations, partner relations, collateral materials development, Internet marketing, and advertising.

Results

Many more businesses learned about Business.gov and millions utilized its resources. Media coverage on Business.gov reached an audience of more than 72 million people in the first two months after the launch, with additional coverage bringing the total to over 100 million after two additional months. The redesigned Business.gov website recorded four million hits in the first two months.

Business.gov was featured in The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, Business Week, Investors' Business Daily, Forbes, Reuters, American City Business Journals including the Washington Business Journal and more than 400 online and print publications. In addition, the radio news release aired on 521 stations and was picked up by Voice of America, a national network reaching a total audience of more than 12.5 million listeners.

Business.gov was designated as one of the "Top Websites of the Week" by MSNBC.com.