1. What’s the biggest challenge you face when it comes to marketing online?
36%
Lack of knowledge
24%
Lack of time
20%
Confused/
Overwhelmed
Digital Marketing Habits Report:
4 Takeaways
↓
About a month ago, we asked you all to take a survey, and many of you generously gave your time. Our hope was to not only get a sense for how small businesses market themselves, but also to get a sense for what we can do to help them.
As we were pulling together the data it became clear that the insights we were gathering weren't only useful to us, but could be useful to business owners trying to get a sense of how their peers are marketing their businesses.
Here are four insights into other small businesses* that you can use to inform your own digital marketing strategy
Confused/
2. What are your primary goals when marketing your business online?
53%
Generate leads
19%
More website traffic
15%
Increase brand awareness
12%
Appear more credible
Leads, leads and more leads! By far the most popular choice and for good reason. At any given point, "Will this bring me more customers?" is the driving force behind most of the decisions a business owner is making.
The fairly even split among the remaining options highlights how important each goal is to running a successful business.
3. How are you currently marketing your business?
Facebook - 75%
Email - 45%
Search Ads - 32%
Direct mail - 26%
Local news - 23%
Display ads - 13%
No surprises here, the classics are still making their presence known with more than 50% of people reporting that they are using either email, direct mail or a mix to market their business. However, Facebook still reigns as the top choice when it comes to where people want to market their business. It's just hard to beat the targeting and the reach that you can achieve through social media marketing.
4. Who manages your advertising campaigns?
Do it yourself - 86%
Local agency - 12%
Friend/Family - 11%
By nature, entrepreneurs are usually the type of people who prefer to get things done on their own — and that stays true when it comes to their digital marketing. According to the data we collected, most business owners are opting to handle their own ad campaigns.
When they do look for help, they're just about evenly split between looking to agencies or asking friends and family for assistance.
The best decisions a small business owner can make are decisions backed by information and data. Use these takeaways as you work on refining your digital marketing strategy, and you can be confident you'll be heading in the right direction.
* February 2019 email survey of 94 small businesses across the United States