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Small Businesses Are Still Losing On Online Marketing
By Rene LeMerle
Expert Author
Article Date: 2008-12-17
A new study out by Microsoft AdCenter confirms it - small business are still missing the mark when it comes to the potential of online.
It appears a large proportion of small business owners are still stuck in the "build it and they will come" mentality. The study highlights that most small businesses have developed websites, but have done little more to enhance their online business presence.
According to the report, over 59% of small business owners who own websites don't use paid search marketing, and of those, a whopping 90% have never tried it.
Maybe this statistic tells the real story. Apparently
…seven in 10 small-business owners who participated revealed that they would rather try to do their own taxes than start a paid search marketing campaign.
The survey cited cost, time and complexity, three common misconceptions about paid search, for the poor adoption.
- Nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) feared keywords may become too expensive.
- Eighty-one percent questioned if paid search marketing is the best use of their marketing budgets.
- One quarter of respondents believe paid search marketing is too complex.
- Twenty-one percent thought it would be too time-consuming.
- Thirty-five percent felt they would need an agency to help set up a search marketing campaign.
While the report is based on a survey of only 400 small businesses in the US (hardly a representative sample size), the trends and responses are all too familiar. Seems the majority of the small business sector still doesn't understand the real value of online.
I mean, who really prefers doing their taxes over anything… Small Business - what's it going to take for you to ‘see the light'?
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About the Author:
Rene is the marketing manager of ineedhits.com - a global search engine marketing company. He also leads the marketing for Gooruze.com - a web 2.0 style community for online and digital marketers. Rene has been in the industry since 1997 with much of that time spent helping businesses embrace the best of the internet and digital world.
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