Search Not the Best Way to Reach SMBs – Oh Really?

The headline says, “Search is not the best tactic to reach SMBs.”

But the headline is deceiving.  And not very accurate.

The headline comes from an excellent article by Anne Holland, CEO of the incomparable MarketingSherpa.  (If you are not a regular MarketingSherpa reader you should start, like yesterday.)

The article covers the results of recent market research released by MarketingSherpa, measuring the effectiveness of six methods to market to SMBs.

The headline is true on a relative basis.  Yes, search marketing is not the top way to reach small businesses.

What the headline does not tell you is that search marketing is the second best way to reach small business customers, out of six different methods.

In fact, only two percentage points separate the top method to market to small businesses (offers in 3rd party newsletters which came in at 70%) from the second best method, paid search which came in at 68%.

I’d say search marketing is a darn good way to reach small businesses successfully, along with 3rd party newsletters.  Read the summary of the research here (PDF).  The chart above is extracted from the summary report.