Small Biz

SMBs will devote 26.6% of their local ad budgets to newspapers (18.6%) and other print media (8%) this year, finds Borrell Associates [download page], based on a survey of 1,756 SMBs in December 2012. That's a slightly bigger piece of the pie than the 25.4% allocated to online ad spend. But, the gap has narrowed significantly from last year, when SMBs estimated spending 28.9% of their budgets on print media, compared to 21% on online ads. Read more »

Small businesses are behind in their adoption of social media, finds Hiscox in survey results released in December 2012. Just 35% of the respondents said they are actively using social media (a figure that appears rather low), although 16% are interested in learning how to use social, and 7% would like to but don't have the time. But, while small businesses might not yet be fully cottoning on to social media, Facebook claims to have seen a rapid rise in the number of local business pages. Read more »

SMBs are using a number of different tactics to draw new business, according to [download page] a Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Act-on Software, but digital marketing continues to take a backseat to tried-and-true face-to-face tactics. Asked which techniques they use to acquire new customers, at least half indicated they were using 14 of the 15 identified. Leading the pack are personal relationships and networking (95%), tradeshows and industry events (89%), and in-person events (86%). Read more »

B2B marketers believe that the most effective content tells compelling and engaging stories. Apparently producing that kind of content isn't such a problem anymore - but producing enough of it is. According to a new report from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs, 29% of North American marketers surveyed said their biggest content marketing challenge is producing enough content. That challenge - up from 20% of respondents last year - has supplanted concern over content quality, which took a big drop from a leading 41% of respondents last year to 18% this year. Read more »

Facebook (68.7%) leads among free social media platforms that small and medium businesses (SMBs) use for marketing, according to survey results from Reply!, released October 2012. Google+ is second, used by 49.2%, followed by Twitter (32.8%) and other social platforms (19.1%). Only 18.6% of SMBs report using none. The picture changes considerably when SMBs are asked on which social media platforms they pay for services, though, with about three-quarters saying they don't pay for any such services. Read more »

The online marketing services support industry contains a vast array of players, but Borrell Associates, in an October 2012 report has generalized them down to a more accessible list, and has estimated that 51.7% of North American small and medium size business (SMB) online marketing service dollars are spent on the web presence category. This represents $202 billion in spending in 2012, and includes such services as website design and management, hosting, and social media management. Read more »

At companies with marketing budgets under $1 million, the most consistent feedback marketers receive about low-quality leads generated through online marketing is the lack of a timeline to purchase, finds LoopFuse [download page] in its "Marketing Outlook" survey, released in October. Just over half of survey respondents report this feedback, while other common complaints about low-quality leads are they are not the decision makers, or that the prospects had no interest in the product or service being offered (each at 29.7%). Read more »

7 in 10 small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) plan to maintain (45%) or increase (27%) their level of spending on mobile media in the next year, compared to just 4% who expect a decrease in mobile spend, according to September 2012 survey results from Borrell Associates, commissioned by Pontiflex. Among those who are planning to increase their spending, slightly more than one-third will increase their budgets by more than 20%. Read more »

US consumer spending on online deals (e.g. daily deals, instant deals and flash sales) will reach $3.6 billion this year, up from last year's $1.8 billion, according to a September 2012 report by BIA/Kelsey. Spending is expected to grow another 23% next year to reach $4.4 billion, although growth will then slow as the industry matures, with spending only increasing another 25% over the following 3 years. Read more »

Small business mobile websites on the MoFuse network averaged 3 page views per visit from July 2011 to June 2012, according to [download page] a report released by MoFuse in August 2012. This compares to the 3.8 average for all mobile websites across the network. Although average page views per site across the network appears to be on the rise, up from 3.4 in June 2011 to 4 in May 2012, small business mobile website engagement shows no significant growth over the past year. Read more »