Amex is out with some new SMB survey data (n=400) about online marketing spending and adoption. The “screener” was that the respondents had to do some form of online marketing. So these SMBs are a bit more progressive than the market as a whole (indicated by website adoption data — 86%) and the finding are qualified accordingly.
Here are the Amex-authored top-level findings:
- Among small businesses who conduct some form of online marketing, two-thirds (66%) say that new customers find them through search engines/Internet, compared to 82% who say word of mouth is still the main source
- The most common online marketing techniques currently being utilized by small businesses are a company website (86%) followed by social media (44%). One-in-five (21%) small businesses report that they are utilizing search advertising.
- Small businesses currently conducting online marketing plan to spend an average of $5,260 on search or social media advertising
- Three quarters of small businesses plan to add some form of online marketing in 2011. Roughly three-in-ten will add a company website (36%) or social media (29%). About one-in-five plan to add search engine optimization (23%), mass email (22%) or search advertising (16%).
Here are some of the interesting tables:
Note in the table above that “yellow pages” (presumably print) is used by 23% of respondents.
The website penetration number (86%) indicates that this is not entirely a representative group. But then again there really isn’t a “representative” SMB sample in the same way there can be “census balanced” consumer samples.
Somewhat surprising in the table above is the relatively small number of SMBs planning to enhance profiles in Google Places and Yelp.
The top considerations in adding a new channel were the following:
- Effectiveness 62%
- Cost to implement 60%
- Cost to manage 57%
- Ability to target audience 44%
- Ability to manage in-house 40%
- Time to implement 34%
- Cost per lead or acquisition 33%
April 1st, 2011 at 6:43 pm
What was the classification of an SMB in this survey? 0-5 or 2-5 or 2-10 employee?
April 1st, 2011 at 6:54 pm
No clear definition but generally understood to be fewer than 99 employees
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