Small business being left behind in marketing stakes

Though outlooks for media and marketing industries are cautiously optimistic as we move out of the global financial crisis, small business is not actively embracing new or traditional marketing.

The Marketing Professionals AdOlogy Forecast, December 2009, which looked at planned marketing activity, reported that well over 50% of US based small businesses would not undertake online display advertising, search engine ads, online video, blogging, podcasting or mobile advertising for 2010.

27% of respondents to the US study don’t see any relevance of social media to business marketing and 46% think that it may be valuable but don’t know how to go about it.

54% of Australian small businesses don’t have a web-site (only marginally higher than the 46% of small businesses in the US who don’t have a site).

And a recent local study of small business operators reported that only 5% intended to advertise on television, 8% on radio and 12% in newspapers - and 20% did not plan to market their business via their own web-site in the next 12 months.

Yet social media, augmented reality, mobile codes/coupons, online video and content marketing, point of sale on screen/in basket advertising, are big news - and providing small businesses with even more marketing options in addition to traditional and ambient marketing tactics.

“Evolving technology leads to a deepening media landscape” says Denise Shrivell, founder of MediaScope which lists above and below the line media channels “It means SME's can choose from more advertising channels to reach their potential customers than ever before. As an example, we have upwards of 30 individual advertising channels - and an ever increasing list of publishers and media providers that they can pick from”.

It would seem that as the pace of technological innovation has accelerated more marketing tools and channels to carry advertising and promotions are being created, but small business is finding itself being left behind, through a lack of knowledge, resources and funds.

“There are almost too many options” says Debra Templar, who trains small businesses, in particular in the retail sector. “Do you tweet – join facebook – advertise? Now there are discount vouchers via the phones available when most retailers haven’t worked out how to deliver regular online communication to their customers. The choices are daunting”.

“Many of the social media tools – like Twitter or setting up Ning communities – are free, and so there is no barrier to entry” says Bambi Gordon, who helps small business with their marketing “But it doesn’t mean that small business have the resources or knowledge to use them effectively.

“In the most part people don’t go about their marketing strategically – they tweet a couple of times, nothing happens and then they give up. This is nothing new – it is the same with traditional advertising....try one ad and then stop.

“The fact that these tools are free attracts people who think ‘great a new free marketing tool – now I don’t need to advertise’, which is blatantly not the case. It means that they are doing even less marketing than they have done before”.

The failure of regionally based small businesses to embrace the new in-bound marketing tools is even more marked than their city counterparts.

“Retailers generally don’t have time to spend online where-ever they are based – but in country towns they aren’t even less likely to use email – regardless of whether there is a high speed connection going past their door...It is an issue of finding the time to learn how to apply the technology”, says Templar.

So, what do small business operators need to be able to make the most of this broad new range of tools at their disposal?

“Small business needs to be strategic – and consistent – to get the most out of any marketing they undertake” says Gordon. “Big business has the resources to investigate all the options, test which is going to work best. Small Business needs help to cut through the clutter.

“Most importantly they need to be trained in how to market their businesses – we need to share knowledge and case studies of how those who are successful are going about it”.

Visit us at: www.thewoo.com.au

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*The Small Business Marketing Forecast study was conducted in November 2009 by Ad-ology Research and analyzes the attitudes and marketing plans of 1,100 owners of US businesses with fewer than 100 employees.

*The Brew Small Business owners profile survey was conducted in December 2009 of 200 members of The Brew in NSW.

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