You say you want SME money... but where’s your buy button?
Why agencies and media owners are losing the long tail (and how to win it back)
Most agencies have a sales problem.
I’ve never quite appreciated the scale of this problem until now. Going freelance in January forced me to confront an awkward truth: people don’t know who you are, what you do, or why they should care.
I’m an experienced journalist and I’m saying this. If you aren’t convinced, you might want to check out this book.
As a self-conscious introvert by nature, I used to walk around assuming I was always being watched and judged. Do I look fat? Am I the shortest guy in this room?
But in reality, most people are too busy dealing with their own problems to notice you, let alone care. You could probably walk a good few blocks down Oxford Street before anyone tapped your shoulder and said, “Excuse me, but are you aware you have no clothes on?”
And if they don’t notice that, they’re definitely not noticing your unclear pricing, vague services page, or lovingly crafted case study from 2017.
This is what the ad industry gets wrong about selling. Especially to small businesses.
The ad industry doesn’t serve SMEs — it performs around them
We say we want SME money. We say we’re here to help.
But if a founder with £10k to spend actually shows up? They’ll have a better user experience buying knock-off Ray-Bans from a spammy Instagram account than trying to navigate most agency or media owner websites.
This week, TV producer Lydia Esler was kind enough to reference a recent Media Leader op-ed I’d written about the opportunity for an ad agency to revolutionise its model to serve small businesses.
In her own opinion piece for TML, she argues:
“It’s an industry where accessibility for all isn’t the gold standard. Where it is suggested that the overarching majority of customers are filed under R for rubbish.”
Exactly.
That’s the reality many SMEs feel. And we’re not exactly correcting the impression.
Having had to wade my way through most agency websites for over a decade, I’ve found they are generally useless for first-time buyers. Pricing is hidden. Offerings are vague. You don’t know if you’re being pitched a £5,000 project or a £50,000 retainer.
Go try and buy media directly: same problem. You either get a form that disappears into a sales team’s inbox, or you’re expected to “book a coffee” like it’s 2008.
If your sales strategy is still “have a coffee and see where the chemistry goes”, you’re speaking the wrong language. SMEs aren’t looking for courtship. They’re looking for clarity.
This industry needs to find a better way to speak SME. Quickly.
Meta may be many things. But it’s easy to buy from…
It doesn’t take much to be critical of Meta and its pathologically unethical leader Mark Zuckerberg.
But when it comes to selling ads to small businesses? It’s an industrial-strength vending machine and has much to teach the legacy advertising and media industry.
Want to spend £50 and reach your postcode by tomorrow? Click. Want to test five creatives? Click. Want instant stats on what worked? Click.
So when Zuckerberg talks about AI that lets you input some brand goals and receive a fully formed ad campaign with attribution reports? The SMEs will very likely say, “Go on then.”
Not because they love Meta. Because it’s easier than dealing with us.
Where’s your buy button?
Let’s try something. Go to your agency’s website. Or your media owner homepage. Ask yourself:
What do we actually sell?
What does it cost?
How do I buy it?
If you can’t answer all three in under 10 seconds, congratulations: you’re not open for business to smaller brands.
Agency websites are full of copy that sounds like it was written by ChatGPT on a trust fall retreat. “Purpose-led transformation.” “Strategic storytelling with impact.” “Integrated solutions at scale.” Okay. But what if I just want to buy a f**king ad?
Because here’s another thing about not being noticed: being consistently available is often more powerful than your amazing uniqueness and creativity. There’s a reason why successful media properties have routine built into their distribution.
Try being a first-time buyer. You’ll get lost in the waffle before you get to the invoice. Much of this is done deliberately by an industry that doesn’t want to be buyable. We want to look expensive.
I’m all for being paid fairly for quality work, but as the market changes, this industry needs to change, too.
The real problem isn’t scale — it’s snobbery
We love the whales. The global brands. The creative briefs that come with their own awards case.
But as I recently argued: it’s the Krill — the long tail of local, quickly growing, category-challenger businesses — who’ve driven the actual growth in this industry over the last 15 years.
They spend on Meta, Google and Amazon. Now they spend on TikTok, too. They spend on retail media and digital out-of-home and programmatic banners and branded tote bags and things that might make agency people wince as they quaff canapés and warm Pinot Grigio at award shows.
But they spend.
Nearly half of all digital adspend comes from them, according to the IAB UK. That’s half of a lot, given how much digital inventory there is across all media now.
And yet: where are they in this industry conversation?
Just look at the IPA’s Bellwether at 25 report. A glossy 25-year retrospective with dozens of pages, thought-leadership from every IPA chair and media veteran in the business.
But I couldn’t find a single mention of SMEs. Not one.
Nor would you expect it; the IPA reflects the priorities of its member agencies. But these priorities need to change by the time we get to Bellwether at 50. These businesses have been fuelling the rise of digital media, driving bottom-up innovation, and collectively outspending the corporates on the media platforms that now dominate our industry.
The ad industry doesn’t just ignore SMEs. It structurally, culturally, and professionally designs them out of the story.
SMEs aren’t a side hustle. They increasingly are the market. And if your model doesn’t make sense to them (or worse, if it actively excludes them…) you’re not elite.
You’re becoming irrelevant.
What I’m doing about it (and what you should too)
I’m learning to be better at this, too.
When I started freelancing, I did all the same things: vague offer, no price, no clarity. “Drop me a line” was my only call-to-action. While my intention may have been to position myself as a high-value partner for a business, some may interpret this ambiguity as: please do all the work for me.
So I’m changing it.
I’m building a site with a clear offer. A fixed price. And yes, an actual buy button for those that want it. No chemistry call required.
If you want to work together, you shouldn’t have to guess whether you can afford me. You shouldn’t need to decode a sales funnel disguised as a case study.
You should just click.
If anyone has done this and can offer advice, I’d really love to hear from you. But I’m convinced that the vast majority of us in media and advertising can do much more to become easier to buy from.
Agencies can do the same. Media owners too.
You don’t have to turn your services into cereal boxes. But you do have to stop hiding the till.
Thanks for reading!
I’m Omar Oakes: a journalist and strategist who’s spent the last decade picking apart how media, marketing, and content actually work — not how they pretend to. I started this Substack to write sharper, smarter takes on the stuff we usually scroll past.
I have no plans to put this newsletter behind a paywall. I am already a paid columnist, industry analyst, ghostwriter and events host. I help brands, agencies, and media companies tell sharper stories, build engaged audiences, and make content that actually works.
If you’re a founder, CMO, or comms leader who needs a strategic thinker who can communicate with the right kind of impact, I’m always happy to talk. And I’m working on something that will be easy to buy for those who want to skip to the value-add!
But for now…
📩 Reach me: omaroakesmedia@gmail.com
🔗 More about me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omaroakes/