Winners and losers in an expanding pie
NEW YORK – First, the good news: US small business (SB) ad spending will increase over the next few years. But this growth will not follow pre-recession patterns. As a result of being slammed by the downturn, SB owners and managers are taking a fresh look at how they spend their precious marketing and ad dollars. This is where the bad news comes in (at least for some).
Until 2008 – 2009, the majority of US SBs had been allocating budgets toward traditional media, mainly as a matter of habit. Automatic renewals and simple placement processes, as well as the comfort of dealing with local vendors, meant that the development of an advertising and promotion strategy was one less thing on SB owners’ already full plates. Not any longer.
“During the recession,” says Donald Best, leader of AMI’s SMB Marketing Advisory Practice, “SB owners and managers were forced to look at every line item in their budget. The recession may have eased, but this newly learned behavior of closer scrutiny has carried over. Having survived this ‘near death’ experience, most SB owners now feel that they must be brutal in evaluating the ROI of everything, including advertising.”
Terms such as search optimization, pay-per-click, and keyword purchases may not have resonated with SB owners, and still may not. But now, to their credit, many new media outlets are using words that hit SBs where they live: targetabilty and measurability. “This is not a one-sided equation,” says Best. “Just as SB owners and managers have learned to seek value, electronic media firms have adjusted their pitch to highlight bottom-line benefits.”
AMI’s new study, “2010-2011 US Small Business Marketing Activity and Spending,” details the findings from a recent survey of US SB owners and managers. The study provides an in-depth analysis of the marketing mix used by US SBs, including over 20 marketing channels, with specific spending forecasts for each. In addition to on-line and social media, the study looks at print, broadcast, and outdoor advertising.
This study is a part of AMI’s SMB Marketing Advisory Practice, which provides research-based market intelligence and essential guidance on maximizing SMB sales and marketing programs and spending. Additional research topics include social media, mobile marketing, and the influence of information sources.
Related Study
AMI-Partners’ “2010-2011 US Small Business Marketing Activity and Spending” report provides a strategic overview of AMI-Partners’ recently completed study.
The survey provides an in-depth analysis of the marketing mix used by U.S. SBs including over 20 marketing channels with specific spending information for each. In addition, the survey identifies trends around social media marketing and e-commerce activity.
The overall market sizing data in this report has been determined through an extrapolation of survey finds, secondary research information, and AMI-Partners’ proprietary small and medium business (SMB) Global Model and U.S. small business marketing forecast model.
For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or their global SMB research, call 212-944-5100, e-mail ask_ami@ami-partners.com or visit the AMI Web site at www.ami-partners.com.
About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.
AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence — focusing on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest-quality data, business planning and go-to-market solutions. AMI was founded in 1996. Since its inception, the firm has built a world-class management team, each with ten to fifteen years’ experience in IT, telecom, online communications or multimedia.
AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies. The firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 30 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis.
