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Small Businesses Unsure of Marketing Effectiveness

According to a new study, a majority of small businesses are unsure about the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. Indeed, 62% of 1,000 small businesses polled believe their marketing is either ineffective or don’t know whether it’s working, according to the survey by InfusionSoft and LeadPages.

The top objective for most small businesses is driving sales, with just over half of respondents citing it as their primary digital marketing goal for 2016. Building brand awareness or conveying information was also important, with 48.4% choosing that goal. Other marketing goals include: collecting leads (34.1%), retaining customers (30%), running promotions (27.5%) and gaining efficiency with marketing automation (15.7%). A surprisingly high number of those surveyed (21.8%) say they won’t be using digital marketing at all this year.

When it comes to specific marketing initiatives, just over half of respondents say they plan to budget more for their company website this year. Digital advertising and social media were also popular investment choices, with 51.1% of those surveyed planning to beef up spending in that area. A quarter of those surveyed will invest in email marketing, 23.4% in print advertising and direct mail, 21.9% on landing pages or purpose-specific web pages, 13.6% on telemarketing and in-person marketing. Almost 20% of those surveyed, however, don’t plan to increase their budgets for any of the listed marketing channels.

About half of small-business owners surveyed don’t employ marketing staff or contract with an outside agency, instead handling all marketing on their own.