75% of SMBs Say Internet Marketing is Effective

SearchEngineLand has published the results of a recent study of SMBs with under 50 employees by BrightLocal and the Chamber of Commerce.

BrightLocal highlights the Top 6 takeaways from the study:

1. 37% of SMBs plan to spend more on internet marketing in 2015
2. 32% say internet marketing is ‘very effective’ at attracting customers
3. 50% of SMBs spend less than $300/month on internet marketing
4. 31% – Phone calls are the most valued success metric
5. 64% of SMBs surveyed handle their internet marketing in-house
6. 35% of SMBs are contacted every day by SEO agencies

Whats in Store for 2015

37% of SMBs are planning on increasing their digital spends and another 47% are considering doing so.

Is the internet effective for SMBs?

32% of SMBs find the internet to be very effective and 75% of those surveyed said the internet was effective at attracting new customers.

How SMBs define success

The number one measure of success for SMBs is phone calls to the business. Surprisingly website inquiries and in-store visits were lower than search rankings and website traffic which may be due to non-brick and mortar SMBs included in the survey.