Infusionsoft recently released their 3rd annual Small Business Marketing Trends report.
The report paints a not so pretty picture of the digital marketing efforts of small businesses. The two key points from the executive summary are:
- The digital world continues to leave some small businesses in the dust. One in seven (15 percent) don’t plan to use digital marketing in 2018.
- Digital marketing success remains elusive to most small business owners. Forty-six percent are unsure their marketing strategies work, 17 percent know they aren’t working.
These findings are particularly distressing given that the report points out that "Gaining and keeping customers remain the top marketing goals" for small businesses.
The Infusionsoft chart below shows how small business owners viewed the effectiveness of their digital marketing efforts over the past 3 years.
A century ago department store pioneer John Wanamaker famously may or may not have said "half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”
But at least Wanamaker (assuming he said it) felt half his advertising budget was worth it. It's pretty clear from this data that most small businesses can't point to value being added by their digital marketing efforts.
The 2nd half of the Infusionsoft report has a series of recommendations and advice on improving the effectiveness of digital marketing. This section is well worth reading.
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