66% of small businesses are putting mobile technology to use in some way to market and/or operate their businesses, according to survey results from Constant Contact. The most common ways of doing so are to optimize social media marketing (73%) and email marketing (71%) for mobile devices, with far fewer (34%) offering mobile-optimized websites. The results come soon after research from eWayDirect, which similarly found that slightly less than half of B2C marketers were optimizing emails for mobile.
While a solid majority of small businesses surveyed by Constant Contact are using mobile technology, that figure may not change too much in the near future. That’s because among the remaining 34% not using mobile, 65% have no plans to change. When asked why they’re not using mobile, respondents were most likely to cite a lack of customer demand for mobile communications (56%), though only half as many said mobile was not relevant to their industry or business (28%).
Other Findings:
- 17% of small businesses surveyed by Constant Contact are using location-based promotions, and 15% use text messaging.
- 70% of the mobile-optimized websites integrate social media, while 39% contain videos.
- Small business owners appear to prefer iOS over Android for both smartphone and tablet use.
About the Data: This Constant Contact-sponsored survey was administered in March of 2013 to 1,305 participants in the Constant Contact Small Biz Council ”“ a research panel of US small businesses and nonprofits recruited from the Constant Contact customer base.
Results include responses from respondents across a range of business-to-business and business-to-consumer industries.
