Infusionsoft today released its 2018 Small Business Marketing Trends Report, revealing small business sentiment on digital marketing, technology and growth. Now in its third year, the report shows small businesses lack the time and resources to keep up with all the changes in digital marketing.
“Most entrepreneurs didn’t start a business to become digital marketing experts, but they understand its importance because customers are online,” said Paul Rosenfeld, vice president of marketing at Infusionsoft. “The challenge they face is knowing how to effectively measure the impact of digital marketing, which is why 30 percent plan to get by in 2018 with the same investment as this year. I would bet that most small businesses would double down on digital marketing if it was easier to assess and track return on investment. Fortunately, there is a lot of exciting innovation in tech enabling small businesses to mine the gold in their customer data and digital marketing.”
Top insights from 2018 Small Business Marketing Trends Report include:
- Small business owners don’t have the time or resources for marketing. Most small businesses reported that their greatest challenge is getting a break from the fray long enough to work on marketing.
- A sizable minority of small business owners will try to get by in 2018 without increasing their spend on digital marketing. 28 percent won’t be spending more in 2018 on digital marketing tactics – a whopping 56 percent increase from 2017.
- Digital marketing success remains elusive to most small business owners. 46 percent are unsure their marketing strategies work, 17 percent know they aren’t working.
- Small businesses rely on social media marketing to get new customers. 71 percent of small businesses plan to use social media content in their quest to acquire customers.
- Facebook is overwhelmingly the social media platform of choice for small businesses. 75 percent of small business owners will include Facebook in their social media strategy.
“The first thing that jumps out to me from this report is that 46 percent of small business owners don’t know if their marketing efforts are effective, but only 24 percent of them plan to spend more on analytics in 2018,” said Sujan Patel, an internet marketing expert who has led the digital marketing strategy for companies like Salesforce, Mint, Intuit and many other Fortune 500-caliber companies.
“My guess is that some business owners don’t know the tools at their disposal to track their marketing efforts, so they throw up their hands and keep doing what they think is working. However, small business owners can track everything from foot traffic to phone calls to online review growth; the ROI of tracking this stuff is so high that there’s no excuse for not making this a priority in 2018.”
The full report includes valuable insights and advice from top marketing experts, including USA Today columnist Steve Strauss, Demand Gen Report’s Brian Anderson, and social media expert Mari Smith. Download the full report here.