Small to medium sized businesses are really the life blood of the economy in our country. All of us combined make up much more business activity than the big dogs you see all around us. It is always interesting to see just how SMB’s plan on spending their money especially from last year to this year. Recently Bredin Business conducted some very important market research that I feel is important to take a look at. They have broken down how small to medium sized businesses and marketers plan on marketing their products and services from 2010 to 2011. The data was broken up into a few different perspectives that I believe is interesting to take a look at.

First Data Set (Marketers Perspective)

The question asked:

On a scale of 1 (significantly decrease) to 5 (significantly increase), how do you plan to change your online marketing tactics this year versus last year?

• Increase in email newsletter usage.
• Increase in search marketing.
• Increase in video marketing.
• Increase in Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn.

Some decreases:

• Decrease in blog marketing.
• Decrease in mobile.

Second Data Set (SMB Perspective)

The question asked:

On the same scale, how do you feel about each of these online tactics as a source of information about products or services for your business?

• Increase in search (Bing, Google & Yahoo).
• Increase in LinkedIn.

Surprising decreases:

• Decrease in Facebook.
• Decrease in white papers.
• Decrease in social networks.
• Decrease in blogs.
• Decrease in video marketing.
• Decrease in email ads.
• Decrease in banner advertising.
• Decrease in Twitter.

Third Data Set (How SMB Acquire New Customers)

The question asked:

Which of these online marketing tactics have you used to find new customers for your business?

I like this data.

• Increase in website usage.
• Increase in email marketing.
• Increase in search engine marketing.
• Increase in local directories.
• Increase in Facebook.
• Increase in display ads.
• Increase in blog marketing.
• Increase in LinkedIn marketing.
• Increase in video marketing.
• Increase in webinars.
• Increase in online coupons.
• Increase in Twitter.
• Increase in mobile marketing.
• Increase in podcasts.
• Increase in location based services.

This is amazing to see because this just shows you how much importance SMB’s are placing on the digital landscape to acquire new customers. There is a mass acceptance of the digital frontier (like the Tron reference?) and it is a trend that is significantly growing. The numbers in the above chart from 2010 to 2011 are intense leaps that are important to acknowledge.

To read the whole study please click Marketing to SMBs in 2011.