SMBs are suffering from online schizophrenia. They know how to “search, find, try, and buy” as online consumers. They just don’t understand how to “promote, position, offer, and price” as online marketers.
This research from WebVisible and Nielsen tells the story:
- 63% of consumers/SMBs look first online for information about local companies
- 82% use search engines for local search
- Yet, only 44% of SMBs have a website
- And half of them spend less than 10% of their marketing budget online
The survey also finds that search engines are easily the most popular source for finding local information:
- 82% use search
- 57% use Yellow Pages directories
- 53% use local newspapers
- 49% use Internet Yellow Pages
- 49% use TV
- 38% use direct mail
- 32% White Pages directories
Despite the clear importance of search, and the fact that SMBs use it themselves to find things — the survey reveals that less than half of SMBs have a website, and those that do – are not happy with the results:
- 51% believe the ability of their site to acquire new customers is ”fair” or “poor”
- 30% feel that they do a better job of marketing than a close competitor
- 78% believe they advertise in the same places as their competitors
- Only 7% of SMBs say their primary marketing goal is to get more visitors to their website
- 61% spend less than three hours a week marketing their website
- 99% of small business owners are directly involved in the marketing
- 65% believe it is very important to know where their customers come from
- Only 9% are satisfied with their online marketing efforts
The cure for this schizophrenic behavior is simplicity and affordability. With simple and affordable tools, SMBs will increasingly invest the time necessary to market themselves online.
If you’re a service provider of any type focused on the SMB market — there is a massive opportunity for you to cure this schizophrenia by bringing to market simple and affordable tools to help SMBs get online so they can get found in search and generate more sales leads.
