Buoyed by optimism about their revenue growth, almost half of small businesses expect to spend more on marketing and advertising in 2017. B2B ratings and review firm Clutch found 59 percent of owners are predicting revenue growth this year, and 49 percent plan on upping their digital marketing spend.
Clutch’s 2017 Small Business Digital Marketing Survey included 350 small business owners and managers, and defined a small business as one with fewer than 500 employees. The respondents serve as decision makers in their organizations, driving trends in digital marketing and the creation of new marketing jobs.
Digital marketing investment in 2016 was modest, with 68 percent of those surveyed spending less than $100,000 on marketing during the year and 41 percent spending less than $10,000. Looking to 2017, small businesses are most eager to increase investment in paid social media (58 percent), a website (56 percent), email marketing (39 percent) and SEO (35 percent).
Of the small businesses in the survey, 335 employ in-house digital marketing staff—49 percent rely on one or two employees to produce digital marketing campaigns. Furthermore, 80 percent of small businesses surveyed work with one or more digital marketing agencies, with 43 percent working with one or two agencies.
Forty percent of respondents were part of a business that had 10 employees or fewer. Nearly half (46 percent) of the small businesses surveyed reported total revenue 2016 equaling less than $1 million.
The full report can be found here.