On average, small and medium-sized businesses that are "Plus Spenders" invest nearly $79,000 annually in advertising and promotions, according to numbers released
Wednesday.
In BIA/Kelsey's most recent SMB survey, 60.6% of higher-spending small and medium-sized businesses, which the analyst firm calls "SMB Plus Spenders," ranked paid search engine
advertising and marketing as an "extremely high" or "very high" priority for the next 12 months. The media ranked the highest priority among nine digital marketing categories.
Local search
revenue should reach $7.2 billion in 2015, up from $7.1 billion in 2014, per BIA/Kelsey's U.S. Local Media Forecast 2015. The forecast suggests local mobile search will account for 51.1% of
mobile ad spending in 2015.
Big-box retailers acting like small neighborhood stores will also spend more to support search. Last month, Wal-Mart Stores launched an in-store feature on its
mobile application called Search My Store. The feature allows consumers to search for items carried in a Walmart store and identify the item’s availability at that store, its aisle location,
ratings and reviews. It's available on Android devices and expands to iPhones by mid-November.
Advertising and marketing priorities during the next 12 months are diverse, reflecting a variety
of SMBs by business category, market type, age, and more. Discovery continues to dominate many company's priorities.
SMB Plus Spenders have their hands on a variety of other media too. Some
53.7% said they would invest in email; 53.3%, print advertising; 51.6%, analytics and performance assessment; 45.1%, social media advertising; 44.7%, mobile; 41.1%, broadcast and cable; 40.2%, video;
and 38.2%, discount deals and promos.
"Small Businesses" photo from Shutterstock.