What: A survey conducted by SmartAge.com Corp. and Millward Brown IntelliQuest revealed that the vast majority of the small businesses surveyed who currently have or are planning to have an online presence expect online promotions to help them compete more effectively in the future. Each small business polled either uses or plans to use one or more online promotions ranging from direct email, reciprocal links, affiliate networks, community chat, bulletin boards, free banner ads, paid banner ads and interstitials (i.e. pop up ads).
"This study indicates that a large number of small businesses are prepared to invest in online promotions and that many of these organizations have already reaped the benefits," said William Lohse, SmartAge founder and CEO. "As a company focused on helping small businesses take advantage of emerging online resources to sell smarter, we are buoyed by the small business community's appreciation for the potential of online promotions."
The poll(1) focused on small businesses that currently have a Web presence or are in the process of developing a Web presence. The sample consisted of members of the IntelliQuest Technology Panel(TM) who met the following criteria:
-- Employed by organizations with 24 or fewer employees in the U.S.
-- Employed by organizations that currently have a Web site or will have a
Web site within 12 months
-- Involved in their organization's Web site
Summary of Findings:
-- Eighty percent of respondents expect online promotions to help them compete more effectively. There are no respondents who feel that online promotions will not be of any help to them in the future.
-- Currently, 45 percent of respondents believe that online promotion has already helped their organization to compete more effectively in today's marketplace. Only 11 percent of respondents feel that online promotions do not help them to compete more effectively.
-- Thirty-eight percent of respondents are primarily trying to reach a national customer base through their online promotions, while 35 percent are primarily trying to reach customers in their local metropolitan area. Nine percent are primarily trying to reach an international market.
-- Forty-seven percent of small business respondents report that online advertising is important to their organization. Fourteen percent say that online advertising is not at all important to their organization.
-- On average, over half of the respondents spend less than $250 per month on online promotions: of these 24 percent spend $0 and 32 percent spend between $1 and $249. In comparison, a little over one-third of the respondents spend less than an average of $250 per month on offline promotions: of these 10 percent spend $0 and 26 percent spend between $1 and $249.
-- The top ranked online promotional methods that respondents currently engage in are:
Direct e-mail (29%) Affiliate networks (9%) Bulletin boards (8%)
Reciprocal links (20%) Community chat (8%) Interstitials (2%)
Banner ads (11%)
-- The top ranked online promotional methods that respondents are planning on engaging in within the next 12 months are:
Reciprocal links (28%) Affiliate networks (23%) Community Chat (11%)
Banner advertising (25%) Bulletin Boards (19%) Interstitials (8%)
Direct e-mail (23%)
When: This survey was conducted from June 6th through June 12th, 2000.
Who: SmartAge.com Corp. (www.smartage.com) is the leading provider of business-to-small business eCommerce and online promotional services and products designed to help small businesses sell smarter. The SmartAge.com(SM) Website provides companies with the infrastructure to easily create and promote their Web sites, attract and retain customers and buy and sell services and products online. SmartAge.com has registered more than 1.3 million members within its small business community. PC Magazine ranked SmartAge.com one of the Top 100 Web sites for the last three consecutive quarters; Forbes.com ranked SmartAge.com one of the top 200 Sites in their best of the Web issue in July 2000 and Yahoo! Internet Life gave SmartAge.com the Gold Star Site award for Best Marketing Resource. The company is headquartered in San Francisco with sales offices in Chicago and New York.
(1) Two hundred and fifty panel members who met the criteria were contacted via e-mail and asked to participate in a Web-based survey. A total of 111 interviews were completed.
NOTE: SmartAge, SmartAge.com, Corner Office, b2sb and Link-to-Me are service marks of SmartAge.com Corp. SmartClicks is the registered service mark of SmartAge.com Corp.
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