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Dec
13
Web Increasingly Is the Place to Reach Small Businesses, Says Warrillow Survey
December 13, 2006 | Anita Campbell
Warrillow & Co. has published the results of its SpendTracker survey, and it shows that the Web is increasingly seen as the place to prospect for and reach small businesses.
The survey, which was conducted in the fall of 2006, asked companies that market to small businesses (1) where they currently spend their marketing dollars, and (2) where they plan to spend more next year. The survey was conducted primarily of Fortune 500 companies that sell B2B to small businesses.
Today, B2B marketers spend the largest amount on direct mail. Of course, that’s to be expected, because direct mail is so expensive. Even if you do only a few campaigns, don’t be surprised if the percentage of your total marketing spend devoted to direct mail skyrockets, too.
But the most fascinating element of this survey is where executives report they will spend more in 2007 to reach the small business market. That’s where the Web comes in.
Forget predictions that email is dead — we know email is not dead, anyway, so just forget any nonsense you hear predicting its imminent demise. Email is definitely alive and well. In fact, 55% of these savvy executives say they plan to spend significantly more on email marketing in 2007.
Next in line is search engine marketing (SEM), with 45% saying they plan to spend significantly more in 2007. That was followed by search engine optimization (SEO), with 44% planning to spend more. This chart shows the break down:
These survey results tie in with an interview podcast interview I conducted yesterday of Dawn Rivers Baker, Editor of the Microenterprise Journal. (I will be publishing the interview in a few days over at my main site, Small Business Trends.) Dawn follows microbusinesses, and she and I are mutual fans of each other’s work. It was fun for me to get her impressions of the microbusiness market, defined generally as very small businesses.
One of her points was just how Web savvy microbusinesses are becoming, and how frequently the supposed experts of the small business market misunderstand this point. Microbusinesses have to be Web savvy — it’s their lifeline to information and resources to run their businesses efficiently. Microbusiness owners do a tremendous amount of purchasing online, because time is such a precious commodity when you are “chief cook and bottle washer” in a business. Many of them market their own businesses online and prospect for their own customers there, too.
So it makes complete sense to spend more to reach small businesses, including the microbusiness segment, online. Besides, it’s hard to find small businesses and, especially, microbusinesses. Online is one of the places you’ll have an easier time finding them than other places, through search engines. And if you can get them to sign up for an email newsletter or updates, you have a direct line in to them.
Many thanks to Zach Vetter at Warrillow & Co. for giving me permission to reproduce the above chart and write about the survey.
