Small Business Marketing Report

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) says its latest Small Business Optimism Index in July, rose 1.7 points to 100.3, slightly above the 52-year average of 98.

Uncertainty remains (fell 8 points from June to 97) and is a big factor in growth and hiring intentions.  Yet, respondents feel the economy will improve (+36%), now is a good time to expand (+16%) and they expect to hire (+14%).

• Survey respondents expecting the economy to improve rose 36%, an astonishing thing given the media forecasts that employment and GDP would fall and inflation would rocket. (June inflation came in at 2.7%, below economist’s projections).
• When asked to rate the overall health of their business, 13 percent
  reported excellent (up 5 points), and 52 percent reported good (up 3
  points). Thirty-one percent reported the health of their business was
  fair (down 4 points), and 4 percent reported poor (down 3 points).
• Inflation is not the biggest concern, and small business owners cited labor quality as the single most important problem for their business (+21%, up 5 points from June).
• The net percent of small business owners believing it is a good time to expand their business rose eight points to a net 14%. This is the highest reading since June 2021.

Small business owners are America’s heroes. Against all odds, high taxes, persistent high interest rates, and pro-corporate domination policies of the government(s), they’re left to their own devices to survive. Despite that, they remain an optimistic group of entrepreneurs, investors and managers.

Of course, more than optimism is needed, and concerns of labor quality arise, the question of competitiveness and even viability are put into question. Employees and contractors are key to small business success. Will the owners make the right human resource decisions?

A Survey of SMB Feelings on Marketing

In their 2024 study, Ascend2 and Constant Contact surveyed more than 1,300 SMBs across Australia, Canada, UK, and the US. Many of them report being overwhelmed by marketing and all the strategy, creativity and production tasks required today to create customer generating content experiences. 3 out of 4 are confident of their current strategy.

“Key obstacles are a lack of time and limited marketing expertise, both of which cause many SMBs to put marketing on the back burner. They recognize the need to amplify their voice and attract new customers, but many are uncertain about which channels to leverage, what content resonates, and how to create a strategy that achieves their goals.”

Do They Really Have a Marketing Strategy?

Strangely, 84% report feeling fairly confident about their current marketing strategy. So, we might have some self-deception going on, as they grapple with a weak market, low online visibility, high promotional costs, limited marketing talent and tough competition online. The chart below shows they’re not experts in marketing.  They intend to spend 5% to 20% more on marketing, and 44% report spending more time on marketing while only 39% say their budget is increasing.

Respondents said they spend the least time on marketing as a business task, which might mean they’re either satisfied with where they’re at or they feel marketing won’t deliver results.  Their attitude toward marketing needs to be opened up and studied.

Signs of Poor Marketing

After reviewing so many small businesses including travel agencies, hotels, and resort destinations, with their web content and social media content, it’s easy to see the real problems which include:

• insufficient, relevant content
• low quality, low impact, and non-engaging content
• low reach and visibility on Google
• lack of depth and sophistication in search engine optimization
• no awareness of or expertise with AI LLM search engines
• lack of investment in time and money in PR and publisher outreach
• unattractive blogs where the interesting entertaining content readers want should reside
• borrowing tour and marketplace provider’s own branded listings of trips/tours/packages
• poor social media marketing campaign
• no paid advertising campaign
• weak branded theme and narrative for their content strategy and social media strategy.
• no testing of content to discover key audience profiles and build content for them
• poor quality traffic/lead funnels and sales analytics to inform strategy

How Should SMB Owners Approach their Own Marketing?

SMB owners are talented entrepreneurs, financiers and financial managers with a wealth of personal selling skills. Yet, we’re entering an AI-dominated era where increasingly customers want to interact with content and only interact personally, when they’re ready to commit to a purchase.

Generating visibility on Google, Bing and AI LLM platforms is not so simple anymore, and being competitive means hiring those producers and strategists with significant skill and talent. Again, the labor quality issue arises with limited HR budgets. A solution might be to hire versatile talent to cut staffing costs and enable them with the best new AI marketing solutions.

As the chart below shows, creating high-quality content, crafting a marketing strategy, amplifying their content and messages, testing and evaluating campaigns and asset performance, posting and engaging on social media, and managing promotional campaigns are the activities they find time-consuming if not stressful.

The reasons for procrastination vary, with lack of time, budget, marketing knowledge, strategic knowledge and complexity being most cited.

60% of respondents believe finding new customers is their top challenge while 31% believe retaining customers is a top challenge. Seems all customers must be wooed constantly.  They report not knowing what works and what doesn’t is a problem, so creating a marketing strategy with the right messaging might be beyond their capabilities.

Respondents said they use more than one marketing channel and believe it is better to use several. Most are more confident with email and SMS solutions, but less so with even marketing and advanced SEO.

What are Good Expectations?

You might find none of this is unexpected. SMB owners are experts in their business and its products/services, in running a business and managing its financing, and managing people and sales. There’s no embarrassment in not having a big marketing budget or lacking the many digital marketing skills necessary today.

Good expectations are realistic forcing you to get the specific talent you need for your retail store, travel agency, real estate company, or management software firm.

Marketing is a specialized talent that deserves respect.  It’s not just a lead generator either.  Marketing helps owners like yourself understand your customer audience, what they like, to help you reposition to be the company they want.  And its marketing’s persuasiveness that makes them believe “you’re the only company for them.”  That’s where customer retention resides.

The whole, free do-it-yourself trend that rushed in during the pandemic just doesn’t cut it now. And one good reason is the level of competition and complexity.  The bar’s been raised as competitors are putting more effort into high-quality marketing and retaining exceptional marketing talent, and at an affordable cost.

A great marketing strategy begins with a clear, detailed view of the market and the target customer which provides the focus for the company’s brand image.  From that, the full set of features, benefits, pains, promises, and assets becomes more apparent.

Assemble Your Marketing Dream Team

Small businesses need freelance talent, yet likely can’t find suitable marketers with a wide range of skills, and the ability to hire designers and other consultants as needed. But more likely, it has to do with an unwillingness to invest in marketing skill.

At some point, an SMB owner might want to work with a branding consultant to build a brand image and a value proposition, along with discussing what the offer to customers should be. It is complicated and if you’re a travel agency owner, SaaS software company, or Realtor, you need a brand positioning that makes sense. Bouncing ideas back and forth could be really helpful.

Find out more about innovative travel marketing, real estate marketing, and travel software marketing.

Contact Gord at 416 998 6246 to discuss helping you excel with your digital marketing strategy.