Small Businesses Shy Away from Online Marketing

According to research from Webvisible and Nielsen, reported by Marketing Charts, small businesses are not leveraging online marketing as well as the could, and they know it!

While 63% of consumers turn to the Internet, and 82% of them use search engines, small businesses spend less than 10% of their budget on marketing online. Of those surveyed, only 44% even had a website. For small businesses that don’t think they are being searched out on the Internet, 39% of search engine users voiced frustration over not being able to find local businesses in their searches. This begs the question, why are small businesses not marketing online?

It’s a pretty easy question to answer really: lack of knowledge. This lack of knowledge takes two main forms:

Lack of know how – most businesses are comfortable with placing an ad in the local telephone directory, newspapers, radio, tv, etc. Most just don’t know how to do online marketing. This can’t be surprising considering how many large corporations fail miserably it as well!

Lack of awareness – many small businesses simply are unaware that services exist for small businesses. Everyone has met the folks from Comcast, the local radio station, or gotten a call from Yellow Pages. How many get a call or a visit from Google, Yahoo, or Yelp?

Large businesses are inundated with calls and email from media buyers and marketing companies, offering to market them online, yet that behavior hasn’t trickled down to small businesses. Clearly there is a far smaller profit margin to be had from small businesses, but perhaps it’s just a matter of putting together the right business model to make it worth while to approach small companies. When you consider that 23% of small businesses are using Yellow pages less and 42% are using newspapers less, it’s seems like an itch looking to be scratched.

Here are some fascinating statistics about small businesses and their online marketing:

• 51% believe both the quality and ability of their site to acquire new customers is only “fair” or “poor”
• 30% of business owners feel that they typically do a better job of marketing than a close competitor
• 78% believe they advertise in the same places as their competitors
• Only 7% of small business owners say their primary marketing goal is to get more visitors to their website
• 61% spend less than three hours a week marketing their website
• 99% of small business owners are directly involved in the marketing
• 65% believe it is very important to know where their customers come from
• Only 9% are satisfied with their online marketing efforts
• 78% of small business owners dedicate 10% or less of their budget to marketing Of those, 30% do no Internet advertising

This is where those looking for information on local businesses turn:

• 82% use search engines
• 57% use Yellow Pages directories.
• 53% use local newspapers
• 49% use Internet Yellow Pages
• 49% use TV
• 38% use direct mail
• 32% White Pages directories

Here is the complete MarketingCharts article.

Image by smccard.