Nearly half of small business owners plan to increase their marketing and advertising budgets in 2017, according to a study released Thursday by Clutch, with email marketing ranking as the third most popular marketing channel.
Clutch, a B2B review firm, polled 350 small business owners and managers to evaluate future revenue expectations for the small to medium-sized business (SMB) sector. Forty-nine percent of SMBs surveyed responded that they plan to increase ad spend in 2017, likely because 59% expect to generate more revenue this year.
Social media, Web site design, and email marketing ranked as the marketing channels most likely to earn increased investment. Social garnered the top spot with 58% of SMBs eager to increase advertising budgets on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. Web site design followed closely behind social with 56% of respondents planning to invest in their business portal, while 39% of small business owners plan to spend more money on email marketing.
Email marketing remains the number one channel for return on investment per dollar spent, and a recent AWeber study suggests email marketing could be essential for growing small businesses.
A poll of 1,600 small business owners illustrated how 75% of small business owners leverage email marketing to promote their business and that the vast majority of small business owners double as email marketers, with 91% fulfilling all of their marketing needs themselves.
Over 80% of of small business email marketers asserted that email marketing is very important to the overall growth of their business, and 30% further attribute a quarter of their revenue or more to email marketing.