64% of Small Businesses Will Spend More on Mobile Marketing This Year

By: Jason Hahn | DM Confidential May 30, 2012

According to Web.com, only 14 percent of small-business owners have a stand-alone mobile website, though this segment has experienced a boost in new business activity because of their mobile marketing efforts. Small-business owners’ marketing budgets are expected to shift toward mobile this year.

Web.com’s study, which was aided by Lab42 Market Research, surveyed 500 small-business owners (those with 100 or fewer employees). Of this pool of respondents, 60 percent said they have a website, while 26 percent said they have a mobile-friendly website. However, just 14 percent said they have a stand-alone mobile website (i.e., a site with a layout specifically for mobile phones).

Of that last group, 84 percent said they saw an increase in new business activity due to their mobile marketing efforts, while 69 percent said they somewhat or strongly agreed that mobile marketing is key to the growth of their business in the next five years.

The No. 1 motivation for investing in a mobile presence is providing better service to existing customers, followed by attracting more local customers, gaining a competitive advantage and using an additional marketing channel.

The biggest hurdle in leveraging mobile marketing is time and resources, which received a 35.7 percent response. It was followed by budget (31.4 percent), lack of understanding of mobile marketing (15.7 percent) and uncertainty about ROI (14.3 percent).

According to the survey, 64.3 percent of respondents say they’ll spend more on mobile marketing this year than they did last year, while 32.9 percent said they’ll spend the same and 2.9 percent said they’ll spend less.

The survey also found that 61 percent of small businesses are not promoting their businesses via mobile search. This year, 15.2 percent said they are very unlikely to invest in mobile search, 13.3 percent said they are somewhat unlikely and 27.6 percent said they are neutral.

Meanwhile, 31.2 percent said they are somewhat likely to invest in mobile search this year, while 12.7 percent said they are very likely.

Web.com cited Google, which found that 1 in 5 U.S. smartphone Internet users who searched for a local business made an in-store purchase, while more than half called a business and 49 percent looked up a business on a map.

Separate figures from Nielsen found that in the first quarter of 2012, 50.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers owned smartphones, up from 47.8 percent in December 2011. Android claimed 48.5 percent of smartphone owners, followed by iOS with 32.0 percent and RIM BlackBerry with 11.6 percent.

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