Throughout 2016, businesses large and small poured record sums of cash into cutting edge technologies and platforms to not only accelerate marketing efficiency but to augment customer experiences. And the results were nothing short of monumental. As an illustrative example, inMarket’s beacon platform, which reaches 50 million monthly active app users, influenced as much as $14.5 billion in consumer spending last November in physical stores during Black Friday Weekend alone.
With consumer confidence still soaring early in this new year, it comes as no surprise that freshly published survey data from Clutch, a well known B2B ratings and reviews firm, shows that 59 percent of small business owners expect their revenue to grow in 2017.
According to a report summary from our friends at VRJournal, those rosy expectations for future revenue are leading 49 percent of small business owners to anticipate spending more on marketing and advertising.
The Clutch “2017 Small Business Digital Marketing Survey” queried 350 small business owners and managers.
“Plans to invest more in digital marketing came after reports of modest investment in 2016 More than half of respondents (68 percent) reported spending less than $100,000 on marketing in 2016, with 41 percent spending less than $10,000.”
And where will those small business owners spend their advertising dollars?
Of course, they’re looking at digital marketing options. The survey suggests they are “most eager to increase investment in paid social media (58 percent), a website (56 percent), email marketing (39 percent), and SEO (35 percent) in 2017.”
Experts interviewed pointed to SEO strategies that prioritize local searches as a key trend to watch.
To learn more, check out the full report and survey data here.
