A growing number of local businesses, facing tight marketing budgets, are turning to search engine marketing and Facebook to promote themselves, according to a survey from MerchantCircle, a social networking site for local business owners.
Asked to name the top three most effective marketing methods they use or have used, 42% cited search engine marketing, while 36.7% reported creating a profile on a social network and 35.8% cited e-mail marketing. More than one third (34.4%) said they use “other online methods,” while “coupons or direct mail” ranked fifth at 23.9%.
“What we’ve seen is a steady decline in traditional advertising methods and a real uptick in the adoption of free online marketing avenues,” said Darren Waddell, VP of marketing and product management at MerchantCircle. He added that local business owners “are much more interested in either things they can really measure the results of like e-mail marketing, or things that cost little to nothing and are simple to use.”
Continues at: Cost-conscious small businesses turn to social, search marketing: survey – Direct Marketing News.
Related articles
- REPORT: 32 Percent Of Small Merchants Use Facebook Places (allfacebook.com)
- MerchantCircle Study: Small Businesses Favor Facebook (webpronews.com)
- Survey Finds Local Marketing Dollars Go To Facebook Places Over Foursquare, Groupon (readwriteweb.com)
- “Building Web Traffic Through Search” – Webcast Presented February 10 at Search Marketing Now (prweb.com)
- New One-Stop Online Resource for Small Business Marketing (prweb.com)
- MoreVisibility’s Mission to Educate Leads to Local Partnership with Florida Atlantic University’s National Alumni Association (FAUNAA) (prweb.com)
- MerchantCircle Goes After Wal Mart, Starbucks (socialnewswatch.com)
- How Small and Local Businesses Can Use Facebook (tjantunen.com)
- Small Business, Tight Niches, Few Headaches, Huge Profits (blogs.forbes.com)