Chicago, – Affinity Express Inc., the leading offshore, onshore and onsite provider of high-volume print and interactive advertising and marketing production solutions, with hundreds of multi-media publishing, marketing services, retailer and other clients, released the results of its survey of small- to medium-sized business (SMB) customers to measure their use of online advertising and marketing tactics.
Around 70 SMBs responded to the survey and 63% and have used online advertising or marketing for their business. Website and landing pages is the most commonly used tactic used by 77% of respondents, with email marketing following closely (73%). Half of the respondents use social media marketing (50%) and around one-third use search engine optimization (31%) and online catalogs (27%). Channels like display ads (23%), blogging (23%), search ads (19%), and mobile (15%) are less explored.
An interesting find is the low use of search engine optimization compared to the prevalence of websites and landing pages as a marketing tactic. This indicates that SMBs are focusing efforts on developing websites and landing pages, but not on optimizing those pages to get found in search results.
Sales is the Most Important Online Marketing Objective
Sales is the most important focus for a small business owner (36% voted it the most important objective of their online advertising or marketing activities), and drives her marketing strategy. However, 23% respondents indicated that brand awareness was most important. Less important are lead generation (14%), lead nurturing (9%), customer service (9%), reputation management (5%), and customer lifetime value (5%).