Important Stats for marketing and advertising small business

Research is key when it comes to marketing and advertising small business.

As a veteran small business marketing consultant of over twenty years, I have spent a lot of time helping entrepreneurs attract, capture, and keep the customers they want.

Getting new customers is vital to any business and there is a lot more to it than putting up a nice looking website or giving great customer service. Most people, especially those just starting out in a new venture, don't realize how different marketing and advertising small business is from promoting big brands and larger companies.

Because larger businesses have more volume, they have more financial resources. Getting their name out, even if it doesn't directly SELL products, often makes a lot of sense.

After all, those companies already have an established loyal base of customers, prospective shareholders, and employees they want to keep their brand in front of.  And if an ad campaign flops, so be it. They learn from it and move on. Most small business owners don't have that kind of spare cash.

Sadly, many small business owners, even solopreneurs, use larger companies as their role models for marketing. How does that make sense when you neither have the funds -- or even the same needs -- as those organizations? Small companies need to get a return on every dollar they lay out. The only image you need to worry about is the one that interfaces with real prospects and customers.

As a small business marketing consultant, I believe that the biggest reason one in five businesses fail in the first year -- and 50% fail by the 5th year, is a lack of small business marketing savvy.

High impact low-budget marketing starts with understanding the basics and doing your research.

Research For Better ROI When
marketing and advertising small businesses

Consider this research for getting better returns when marketing and advertising small businesses:

1. One of the best ways to market is to get other people to market for you. A study in Entrepreneur magazine found that people were four times more likely to buy a product after it was recommended by a friend.
2.  In a recent study by Direct Marketing Association, the number of touches required to convert a prospect into a sales-ready lead ranged from two to nine touches, with an average of 7.51.
3. 70% of people make purchasing decisions to solve problems. 30% make decisions to gain something (Impact Communications). 
4. At any given time, only 3% of your market is actively buying. 56% are not ready, 40% are poised to begin (Vorsight).
5. An Experian report found that promotions that conveyed a sense of urgency had at least 14% higher click-to-open rates, 59% higher transaction-to-click rates, and twice as high transaction rates compared to their average marketing emails.
6. Full-Cycle Social Psychology documents numerous studies that show people are more likely to take action when minimal parameters are set e.g. when asking for a charitable contribution, adding that every penny counts (28% vs. 50%). 
7. More than 90% of visitors who read your headline also read your "Call Your Action" copy (Unbounce).
8. Emails with a single call-to-action increased clicks 371% and sales 1617% (WordStream).
9.  In Dr. Robert Cialdini’s well documented book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he explains the powerful concept of “reciprocity” -- if someone does something for you, you naturally will want to do something for them.  In one of hundreds of examples, Cialdini reports that restaurant patrons tipped 20% more when servers brought them two mints with their check. 
10. 73% of salespeople using social selling as part of their sales process outperform their sales peers and exceeded quotas 23% more often (Aberdeen).

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