And the place that these small businesses are seeing the most results from their marketing investment is digital direct marketing: e-mail and search. In particular email marketing seems to be the more important of the two in terms generating revenue with 82% of the businesses polled either currently sending out e-newsletters or planning to in the next 12 months.
While it is exciting that there are now marketing channels available to small business that can generate demonstrable results from smaller investments, I have some concerns: Are the websites that will be receiving all of this traffic from newsletters and search marketing efforts ready? Will the prospects attracted have the kind of experience that will convert them into customers? Will the newsletters themselves be valuable enough each time to sustain customer interest and willingness to receive them? Just as in more traditional marketing, investment in the delivery channel is only half the battle.
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