As we have been saying for 2 years now, the days of traditional paid advertising are almost over for small business. In a new national survey just released, over 8,500 small and local businesses, who have very limited time and money for marketing, are gravitating towards simple, low-cost online marketing methods such as Facebook and other social media.
More than half of local merchants are spending less than $2,500 a year on marketing, and 60% have no plans to raise their budgets this year. As many merchants struggle to manage their existing programs, 37% say lack of time and resources is the top online marketing challenge to take advantage of new, unproven services.
With huge consumer adoption, ease-of-use and low barrier to entry, Facebook continues to be a popular way for merchants to market their business, with 70% using the social network for marketing, up from 50% one year ago. 37% rate Facebook as one of their most effective tools, almost tied with Google search (40%) as one of their top three most effective marketing methods. 40% of local merchants say they use the twitter.
Tried-and-true online methods trump new, unproven approaches. Three of the top marketing methods for local businesses, social, search (being found when users search for local businesses) and email, are cited as being the most effective, with 36% putting social networking in the top three, 40% citing search and 36% choosing email marketing.
Less than 15% of merchants report doing any sort of mobile marketing or advertising, and more than half have no plans to do so in the coming months. Lack of understanding remains a huge barrier to adoption, with 74% of merchants state that they don't have a good idea of how to reach consumers via mobile marketing. This will change in the next few years.
Only 11% of local merchants have offered a "daily deal" using a service like Groupon or LivingSocial, with an additional 20% planning to do so in the coming months. Also, this type of service is considered not appropriate for medical professionals.
Wow...yes as predicted, over the course of 2010, use of print advertising dropped by 33% (from 40%), use of print Yellow Pages declined 18% (from 45%), and use of direct mail decreased 26% (from 39%).
Many of these methods, though, continue to deliver results for local merchants. 24% say that coupons or direct mail are still one of their top three most effective marketing tactics, 23% say print Yellow Pages are a top three tactic, and 20% put print newspaper ads in the top three as well.
Concluding that there is no letup in effort to increase new tactics within small businesses, the report says that 51% of local merchants get at least one online marketing sales call a week, with 10% getting called almost on a daily basis.
The time to jump in to this method of gaining new veterinary clients was "Yesterday". So jump in now. Keep an eye on our monthly webinars to learn the "how to's" and we'll guide you.
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