Small Business Survey: Group deals and "Pay-per-lead" poised for growth
The results from our latest installment of the Merchant Confidence Index survey are just in. We received over 2,500 responses from our small business members and we'll be "crunching the numbers" over the next few days to share insights into: 1) small business owners' opinions of the current economy, and 2) the adoption of new marketing channels by these business owners.
As illustrated by the super-cool infographic below, newer paid marketing channels like Facebook Ads and group deals are now part of the small business marketing mix, with local pay-per-lead poised for some serious growth in the near future.
Also surprising is the quick adoption of Google Offers relative to the "big boys" in the group deal space like Groupon, Facebook Deals (no longer around) and Living Social. Local business owners tell us that they plan to try Google Offers more than any other group buying service in the future.
Enjoy the infographic!
Sincerely,
The MerchantCircle Team
Labels: facebook ads, google offers, group deals, groupon, living social, pay per lead, Small Business
posted by
MerchantCircle Staff
at
12/08/2011 06:12:00 AM
,
8 Comments:
The question asked was: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?” Search Marketing (SEO + SEM) jointly got 43% of responses. Interestingly SMBs are giving up on traditional media advertising as their most important marketing channel. Note that the question was not asked to determine which is the best performing channel, but which channel to keep if you had to pick only one. If the question was about performance, I would say SEO and SEM would be at 70-80%, if not higher.
@SearchDecoder
www.SearchDecoder.com
Awesome stats, great job Merchant Circle!
loved the survey it provided me with good infoabout small businesses www.treasurecoastmarketers.con
I think more and more business owners are starting to grasp the concepts of digital based marketing. It is no longer a "fad" like many thought years ago. The reality that it is a must is surfacing to the top.
Search Decoder's comments are on point. Also note that traditional advertising isn't falling off the map. It's fallen from the top method to second after SEO/SEM. Finally, the top method of advertising used by SMBs is reported to be Facebook but not Facebook Ads which demonstrates a critical gap in the understanding of web marketing on the part of small business owners.
Facebook without Facebook Ads probably means essentially paying someone $50 to $500 to put up a pretty page that no one will see.
Awesome survey. This will be useful for my business.
I agree, small businesses are starting to understand digital marketing. They're not there yet, though.
Pay per lead is theoretically a great idea because you're paying only for advertising results, although the ROI depends a lot on the cost of each lead. PPL makes more sense than paying for every time your ad is viewed, though.
Pay per lead is the next generation of marketing for all company's online.It brings more customers for less money so people make money by referring and the spend less by doing so.
Great post,thanks.
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