The State of Small Business Marketing

taking online reviews (word of mouth marketing 2.0) seriously enough.

websitebuilder.org

The Impact of Reviews

But for those that are, the rewards are great: New research from BrightLocal says “going from a 3-star rating to a 5-star rating gets a business 25% more clicks from the Google Local Pack.”

Given how weak most small businesses are on SEO (more on that in a moment), reviews seem to be a relatively easy way to get and keep more customers.

Few small business owners outsource their marketing.

The biggest problem most small business owners have is time. And many of them don’t particularly like doing marketing or have a lot of experience with it.

So why not outsource?

54% of small businesses outsource graphic design and website design according to the 2017 WASP Barcode Technologies “State of Small Business Report." But only 14% outsource their marketing, public relations, and advertising.

This comes up again in other studies. In the InfusionSoft 2017 “Small Business Marketing Trends Report, 70.8% of small businesses reported doing their marketing in-house.

infusionsoft.com

Small Business In-House Marketing

Unfortunately, this isn’t working well. Street Fight’s research on small business owners found that among business owners that either do their marketing themselves, delegate it to an internal team, or outsource it to an agency, the owners who do their marketing themselves are the least satisfied with their results.

The most satisfied? They’re the owners who outsource marketing to an agency.

Street Fight/Prospective

Urban Small Business Satisfaction

Small businesses tend to neglect their websites.

Small businesses are still a bit behind the curve when it comes to getting online. They’re pretty good with social media (most have adopted it), but they’d benefit more by having their own site, rather than relying on Facebook.

So how bad is it? Well, 29% of small businesses still don’t have a website, according to Clutch’s third annual Small Business Survey.

This is disappointing, but it’s better than it was last year. We’re seeing strong evidence that small businesses are finally becoming digital. It’s a good opportunity for them, too: Websites are regularly named as the most effective marketing channel forsmall to medium businesses.

Small Business Web Design Survey

Number of Small Businesses With A Website

Some things do trouble me, though. Small businesses in the Midwest are at a particular disadvantage – only 58% of them have websites. And very small businesses struggle, too. Only 59% of small businesses with a revenue of $1 million or less per year have a website.

There is one bright side to this. For the businesses that do have a website, most of those sites are mobile-friendly – 83%. That’s an improvement from earlier years, and an important one. Most of the traffic on the web is now via mobile devices.

I have to call one last thing out here, though: Small businesses are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to SEO. In our own WASP Survey, we found only 28% of small businesses do any search engine optimization.

That’s free traffic, guys (and gals). An easy way to get more customers. And it’s not terribly hard to get. But you do have to put a little effort in.

Marketing is a moving target these days. Technologies evolve and customer behavior seems to change almost every day.

Small businesses tend to be a little slow with marketing developments. Some are cutting-edge, of course – but most wait until there’s proof a tactic works.

That’s not a bad strategy, either. If you’re short on time and money (as most small businesses are), it just makes sense to stick with what works. You can’t be chasing every shiny object that shows up in marketing magazines.

But small businesses are adopting new marketing technologies. They are changing how they think about their customers, too. As you’ll see in the points below, they might have a little catch-up to do here and there, but generally, they’re keeping pace.

Online reviews can help – or hurt - a business.

Most small business owners already know the power of word of mouth marketing. But many of them are still not taking online reviews (word of mouth marketing 2.0) seriously enough.