In October of 2010, Zoomerang partnered with GrowBiz Media and launched a survey in an effort to understand how small to midsized businesses used their marketing budget in 2010 and what changes they were planning for 2011. The survey was sent to businesses with less than 1,000 employees across the US (sorry I haven’t come across a similar survey with Canadian SMBs).
I admit a sense of astonishment in seeing that only 54% of the 751 respondents indicate that their business currently has a website. Not so surprising was that E-mail and social media marketing continue to grow in popularity. Heading into 2011, most SMBs plan to increase their marketing spend in both online and print mediums, with online activities receiving the largest increases.
Here are the Key Takeaways –
• Businesses are continuing to adopt social media and build these practices into marketing budgets.
• The growth of social media could be linked to more than half of the businesses surveyed having a marketing budget of $1,000 or less.
• Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the top three social networks, respectively, utilized by SMBs.
• Respondents under the age of 30 are the highest adopters of social media.
• The top five budget areas that SMBs plan to increase in their 2011 marketing budgets are: website, e-mail, direct mail, social media and print advertising.
For more information on the survey and its results, click here to download the report in its entirety.
Paul Bies
President,
Mystique Brand Communications