Small Businesses Looking to Online Tools For Stronger Growth in 2010

By Chris Crum - Mon, 11/02/2009 - 1:33pm.

Email Marketing Big On That List

Campaigner has shared some findings from its State of the Small Business Online Marketing Survey. The firm says that while the economic climate has challenged businesses of all sizes, many small business owners are seeing the beginnings of a turnaround and are positioning for stronger growth in 2010 through the use of web-based marketing tools.

"Email marketing is one of the best ways for small businesses to attract and retain customers while also growing revenue, which were two of the top business challenges identified by small businesses in the survey," said Steve Adams, vice president of marketing for Protus, the provider of Campaigner. "The survey also showed the growing importance of email marketing and other Web-based tools in driving business growth. As we head into 2010, now is the ideal time for small businesses to look at their marketing programs and make sure they have a combination of Web-based and traditional marketing tools in order to best position their businesses for strong revenue growth."

Here are some of the key findings:

- 46% of small businesses surveyed expect to report higher revenues by year end versus 2008 earnings

- Of the small businesses surveyed, those positioned for higher growth in 2010 are spending more on marketing, especially email marketing and other online tools.

- Overall, small businesses are shifting more marketing online versus traditional marketing approaches such as print advertising and direct postal mail

- Top online marketing vehicles include social media/networking, email marketing and search engine marketing

- 82 % surveyed who currently use/plan to use email marketing expect revenue growth in 2009

- 18% who do not use/have no plans to use email marketing expect revenue growth in 2009

"The survey clearly reveals that the use of low-cost Web-based marketing tools is playing a strategic role in helping businesses succeed," said Laurie McCabe, partner, Hurwitz & Associates. "Making a few changes to incorporate more online tools into the marketing mix seems to be a key ingredient to small business success."

Increasing the amount of attention paid to online strategies makes sense. People are doing more of their research online before buying. It's getting to be that time of year when this matters the most too.

News Tags: Research, online marketing, campaignercampaigner, email

About the author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network. Subscribe to SmallBusinessNewz RSS Feeds.

Comments

By Simply Clicks (SBN reader) - Tue, 11/03/2009 - 12:05pm.

Online Versus Offline

Seems that online marketing is growing inexorably at the expense of offline activities. However, I still believe that in most B2B categories there is still a mismatch between marketing activity and buying behaviour.

By Official Safety and Security (SBN reader) - Tue, 11/03/2009 - 12:34pm.

Doesnt' work for everyone...

I've done some research on email marketing for my safety and security web site and it doesn't really work for my industry. I've tried a few things to test this out and it's true. Thanks for the tip anyway,

By Norma C. (SBN reader) - Tue, 11/03/2009 - 7:03pm.

toss up

Hi there

Sometimes email marketing may end up as being jus another email that people delete if it is not in there category of information they seek. Therefore I wonder what % of these emails are really read

thanks

Norma

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By Siskiyou Web Design (SBN reader) - Wed, 11/04/2009 - 1:23am.

Online Is the Way to Go

Online marketing can be more directed and less expensive. Email marketing can include E-newsletters, not the traditional SPAM which is worthless for conversions. The Safety and Security person above should check out E-newsletters.

By Jeff Moriarty (SBN reader) - Mon, 12/28/2009 - 1:03pm.

Works Well for Local & National

I use email marketing for our online national site and our local b&m site. They messages that we use are very different, but work well for both. I think you can make email marketing for for any industry, it just takes a lot of testing and time in the beginning. For our national site, we sell promise rings. This allows us to push promotions for other promise related jewelry, and then we even send out content related to marriage and relationship. Gets visitors to keep coming back. For our local site, we push events and sales, which work well for getting people back into the store without having to do tv and postcard advertising.

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