A recent survey found that small businesses are changing with the tides of consumerism and embracing the digital age.
Digital marketing is going viral among small businesses.
Seventy percent of small-to-medium sized businesses plan to increase their digital marketing budgets in 2017, according to a survey by GetResponse, an email marketing company. Small Business Trends reported on the results of the survey.
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Of the 70 percent of businesses that said they would increase their digital marketing budget, 30 percent of them said their budget would “increase considerably.” Forty percent of that same group said their budget would “increase somewhat.” Twenty-eight percent said their budget would “remain unchanged,” and only two percent said their budget would “decrease.”
These findings are in line with a Gartner study that found that marketing budgets for larger companies—those with at least $250 million in annual revenue—have continued to grow over the last three years, according to GetResponse’s reporting on the study. That means large and small businesses alike are increasing digital marketing spend.
“Digital marketing is vital for SMBs, and our survey numbers bear that out,” said GetResponse CEO and Founder Simon Grabowski. “Marketers are investing accordingly, given the substantial return-on-investment delivered through web-based campaigns.”
There are a couple of caveats, however, Marketing Land noted. The first is the survey pool, which is a relatively small number: only 200 businesses were surveyed. The second is that 30 percent of the businesses surveyed have more than 100 employees, but it’s unclear where the remaining 70 percent fall when it comes to number of employees. Considering that more than 90 percent of small businesses have fewer than four employees, according to Marketing Land, these survey results may not reflect all small businesses.
That being said, the increase in digital marketing spending has increased as more people access content online on various devices. The businesses in the GetResponse survey said social media marketing, mobile marketing (app or web-based), and email marketing would be their top priorities in 2017. Grabowski encourages small businesses to focus on mobile marketing in particular.
“Mobile marketing is increasingly important given the surging content consumption numbers across smartphones and tablets,” he said. “And social media usage has only grown in tandem with mobile consumption, as the most popular platforms are mobile-first. Email, too, has become a mobile-driven activity.”
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