Josh Walker at CityVoter sent me the results of the company’s spring survey of SMBs (n=321). The findings are interesting and cover social media and deals in particular.
Sixty-six percent (66%) of CityVoter’s respondents said they spent “less than 1 hour a day” on marketing. The other 34% reported spending “more than 1 hour a day.” Social media consumed a significant chunk for nearly half the SMBs in the survey.
Roughly 43% of respondents said they were spending at least 50% of their time on “social media.” The term “social media” here is undefined (Josh?). But we can guess it probably means Facebook and Twitter. If you’re only spending an hour on marketing per day then 50% of that isn’t a major time commitment. However if there’s any meaningful commitment of marketing time social media seems to be eating much of that up.
There were also a number of questions devoted to deals. Consistent with several other surveys, nearly 3/4 had not used daily deals.
A very healthy 54% said they “made money” with daily deals. But 46% said they broke even or lost money.
What’s interesting (Josh pointed this out in a comment on an earlier post) is that not all of the group that made money would do it again. This is very interesting. What was it about the experience — even though they made money — that dissuaded them from doing another deal?
Finally CityVoter found that nearly half (46%) of respondents were getting three or more calls per month from deal vendors. This doesn’t include calls from other SMB marketing channels trying to sell other stuff (e.g., SEM, SEO, etc.).
July 12th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
[...] crowded with as many as 350 – 400 companies operating, according to some estimates. A recent survey of roughly 320 small businesses by CityVoter found that nearly half (46 percent) of local-merchant respondents were getting three or more calls [...]
July 12th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
[...] crowded with as many as 350 – 400 companies operating, according to some estimates. A recent survey of roughly 320 small businesses by CityVoter found that nearly half (46 percent) of local-merchant respondents were getting three or more calls [...]