Beleaguered small businesses changed the ways they do things during the pandemic, and many have reduced their marketing, according to “One Year Later: How 254 U.S. Small Businesses Fared
During Covid-19, a study released Thursday by PostcardMania.
Of the SMBs polled, 59.75% pivoted, and 9.32% have simply closed. The remaining 30.93% report no change.
In
addition, over half have maintained the changes, 33.12% completely. But 24.03% have mostly reverted back to their pre-pandemic ways, while 18.83% have done so partially and only 3.24% have done so
fully.
Asked if COVID-19 had affected their marketing, they say:
- No effect—we continued marketing at our usual/planned outflow — 28.18%
- Yes, we cut back on
our spending significantly — 31.82%
- Yes, we cut back on our spending a little bit — 14.55%
- Yes, we increased our spending significantly —
7.27%
- Yes, we increased our spending a little bit — 7.73%
- N/A, we don’t actively market the business, so nothing has changed — 10%
Those marketing budgets presumably include email.
But SMBs are returning to normal in some ways—55.73% say all their employees have returned to the office. Another 19.85% have a mix
of some staff working from the office and others from home.
In addition, 13.74% said staffers are now permanently working at home. And 10.69% that they are still temporarily working from
home.
Have SMBs returned to their usual marketing activities? They answer:
- Yes—we are fully back to our normal marketing actions — 15.93%
- Yes,
we have actually increased our marketing — 28.57%
- No, we are marketing again but on a smaller scale — 36.81%
- No, we aren’t marketing at all —
18.68%
PostcardMania recently surveyed 254 small businesses.