Complete Story
06/22/2015
Local merchants embrace digital but need plenty of help
Local merchants have embraced an ever-widening range of digital marketing tactics, from mobile targeting to online scheduling tools. They deem them more effective than traditional channels — yet most aren’t measuring the effectiveness of their marketing efforts well, opening the door for suppliers.
To that end, Street Fight Insights teamed up with Thrive Analytics to survey 500+ small business owners in the U.S. to better understand their usage of and attitudes toward digital marketing and e-commerce. Suppliers of marketing technology and services can use the results of our analysis, presented in The Local Merchant 2015 report, to align their strategies with merchant hot-button issues, and best assist them where they lack expertise or resources.
In the connected local economy, digital techniques will be the primary means of navigation for the customer journey everyone talks about. At the same time, physical-world commerce infrastructure is about to be seriously outdated. Nearly twice as many small businesses use digital marketing techniques like online advertising, search, and email as use local newspapers or yellow pages. More important, they label the digital marketing tactics higher in effectiveness than print, and budget accordingly. Most concentrate on acquiring new customers, perhaps at the expense of conversion and retention.
