A recent survey from the lead generation company MerchantCircle/Reply.com finds that SEO tops the list of marketing channels for small and medium businesses.
They asked 2,500 businesses this question:
“If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?”
Slightly less than 80 percent of respondents were businesses with fewer than four employees and more than half (63 percent) had annual marketing budgets that didn’t exceed $2,500. The results:
The response is not particularly surprising, except perhaps for the strength of traditional media (which would include newspapers, yellow pages, direct mail and traditional radio). Perhaps the constraint of limiting your marketing to one category pushed some businesses to fall back to the traditional methods with which they are familiar.
But SEO remains the clear leader here. Maybe because IT WORKS! Marketing your product and service is, first and foremost, about getting it in front of potential customers, and SEO has proven effective at increasing visibility and helping your prospects find you.
This study is interesting, but I have to ask…why would you limit your marketing efforts to just one channel? It’s unlikely that I would recommend this strategy to a client and renders the survey a little less than useful IMHO.
Anyone who glances at the survey without reading the proposal carefully could come away with the (incorrect) opinion that channels like mobile marketing, paid search advertising and social media are unpopular with many businesses and perhaps unworthy of their attention.
One of the foremost benefits of internet marketing is how easy it is to employ a number of marketing channels and how well they interact to boost each others’ performance. Responsiveness, interactivity, measurability and accountability make multi-channel internet marketing strategies a powerful driver for online business. SEO tops the list, but don’t limit yourself!
