Small Business Marketing Trends Report by LocaliQ explored different marketing trends among SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses), their growth and what challenges small business owners are facing nowadays. The report was based on a survey of 730 small businesses. The report highlights the marketing channels and tactics SMBs are using nowadays. 52% said that they are focusing on social media marketing, 47% are using social media ads and 40% are search advertising. SEO and email outreach isn’t as popular among small businesses.
The survey also found out what social media channels small businesses are most interested in nowadays. Facebook (76%), was the top social media channel used by SMBs, followed by Instagram (63%) and LinkedIn (43%). Facebook makes sense as it has the highest number of users among social media channels, but LinkedIn being this popular among SMBs didn’t make sense.
76% of SMBs said that they are very satisfied with the results they get by search advertising. 74% were satisfied with video marketing, 75% with content marketing and 73% were satisfied with the results of social media ads. Even though only 29% SMBs use video marketing, it still came second for the most satisfactory marketing tactic. 58% SMBs said that they are very interested in using social form videos for marketing. 48% and 30% also want to try influencer marketing and podcast marketing respectively.
SMBs were also asked if they have tried AI for marketing or not. 57% answered with yes, while 33% said no. 10% said that they are not sure about AI. 61% said they are using AI to save time while 50% are using it to generate ideas. AI is mostly being used for content creation (52%), social media management (39%) and chatbots (34%) by SMBs.
Take a look at the charts below for more insights:
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