Latest trends in the IM world: Merchant circle survey 2011

Merchant Circle recently released its quarterly Index that tracks the trends of SMB (Small & Medium Businesses) and IM. There were many exciting outcomes, analysis & trends from the survey that involved around 5,000 SMBs from a span of 1.6 million local businesses. So what did the survey revele and what can you do to use these results to improve your local business activities?
The economy hasn’t been steady for a while now and small businesses are learning the ropes of IM, the survey revealed most of businesses are proceeding cautiously. However most SMBs are optimistic and around 64% agreed that the economy is stable or is improving since the recession. 57% of SMBs are looking to increase revenue within the next three months. Boston Web Developmenta> agencies along with various others in the country welcomed this news as 70% SMBs are not looking to hire new talent but are willing to hire agencies for their IM work even though the budget is expected to remain steady for a while (57%).

Take the example of the Boston Online Marketing scenario, on average most SMBs have a budget of $2,500 a year which really isn’t sufficient to hire a full time employee but can be used to get the job done. Statistics reveal Boston Search Engine Marketing campaigns cost less then that of a full time employee, but with the advantage of getting more things done for little. This is because outside agencies can be hired to do only specific projects and as they are hired on a "consulting” basis, business owners do not have to deal with the issues associated with hiring a permanent employee like vacation time, insurance, etc. The same scenario exists throughout the country, be it a big competitive city like Boston, New York City or a small town with just a few thousand people.
According to the survey data, due to the limited resources SMB owners are looking for cost effective method such as social media (40.9%), email marketing (37.1%) and local search/review sites (25.9%). The data reveals a new trend towards using web 2.0 platforms over traditional online marketing media such as PPV, paid advertising, yellow pages, classifieds, etc. Another shocking fact was SMBs do not utilize paid social media traffic but rather make engage their existing users since local social ads such as Facebook Ads did not help in new customer acquisition due to ‘brand’ recognition that was already existing.
Recent launch of Google and Facebook local deals also received a positive response form the local community who favored using recognized brands that they are comfortable with and also with experimenting with the ‘next big thing’ such as Groupon or Living Social. These new sites are enjoying growing popularity with both consumers and local business owners alike.