BersonDeanStevens, Inc.
SMBs Are Increasing Marketing Budgets: New Trends and Challenges

SMBs Are Increasing Marketing Budgets: New Trends and Challenges

by | May 15, 2024 | Marketing, Marketing Strategy

In a recent study by Constant Contact and Ascend2, roughly 39% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across the US, UK, Australia, and Canada are increasing their marketing budgets this year. This uptick in spending is not just about spending more; it’s about strategically expanding marketing efforts to include a wider selection of channels and tactics. In fact, over 40% of SMBs are set to diversify their marketing channels and tactics, recognizing the need to adapt to a rapidly changing market environment.

The Most Time Intensive Marketing Tasks

This expansion means businesses will need to dedicate more time to their marketing strategies. Currently, most SMBs spend less than an hour per day on marketing, focusing their energies instead on essential business operations such as customer interactions and order fulfillment. However, as marketing budgets increase, 44% of SMBs anticipate that more of their time will be allocated to marketing endeavors.

Despite the intention to ramp up marketing efforts, a significant challenge remains: many SMBs (52%) regularly delay or postpone marketing activities, often due to time constraints. Content creation, strategy planning, and social media posts are particularly susceptible to delays. These tasks are not only time-consuming but also require specific marketing knowledge that many SMBs lack. This knowledge gap often confines them to familiar and easy-to-implement channels, potentially limiting growth.

Advantages of Fractional Marketers

To overcome these challenges and effectively use their increased budgets, SMBs can benefit from hiring fractional marketers. Fractional marketers are experienced professionals who offer their expertise on a part-time or contract basis. Here are several key benefits of bringing fractional marketers on board:

  1. Expertise on Demand: Fractional marketers bring specialized knowledge and skills that may be missing internally. They can strategize, execute, and measure the effectiveness of various marketing tactics, filling the knowledge gap without the cost of a full-time hire.
  2. Cost Effectiveness: Hiring a fractional marketer is more affordable than employing a full-time senior marketing executive. SMBs can access top-tier talent while staying within budget, ensuring that increased marketing investments deliver maximum impact.
  3. Flexibility and Scalability: As SMBs expand their marketing efforts, they need flexible strategies that can scale with their growth. Fractional marketers can adjust their involvement based on the company’s current needs and budget, providing more support during strategic launches or scaling back during slower periods.
  4. Fresh Perspectives: Bringing in a fractional marketer can inject new ideas and perspectives into the business, which can be crucial for innovation and staying ahead of market trends.
  5. Time Management: By delegating substantial marketing responsibilities to a fractional marketer, business owners can free up their time to focus on core business operations and customer engagement, optimizing the productivity of the business as a whole.

As SMBs prepare to increase their marketing budgets to capture larger audiences and enhance their market share, hiring fractional marketers offers a strategic advantage. These professionals not only mitigate the challenges of time and expertise but also enable SMBs to maximize their marketing ROI, ensuring that every dollar spent contributes to significant business growth.

About the Data: The results are based on a February-March survey of 1,335 small business owners and operators representing companies with fewer than 250 employees, across all industries.

Ready to elevate your marketing strategy without the overhead of a full-time executive? Schedule a call or email Lori at lberson@BersonDeanStevens.com to discover how fractional marketing services can drive your business forward.

BersonDeanStevens has been a recognized brand strategy and marketing leader for over 25 years. We work in partnership with you to differentiate your brand and achieve your business goals. Client list.

 

 

Successfully Market Your Business For Just The Price of a Cheeseburger and Fries

Successfully Market Your Business For Just The Price of a Cheeseburger and Fries

by | May 10, 2022 | Digital marketing, Marketing, marketing technology

Overview
With pandemic shutdowns, the ‘great resignation’ (leading to millions of start-ups*), supply chain disruptions, and increasing inflation, it’s been tough to bring in new business.

We’ve seen many small businesses, professionals, and independent contractors struggling to either jumpstart sagging sales or get a new business off the ground. Many have considered hiring a marketing agency, a marketing consultant, or adding to staff but that can be expensive when budgets are tight and talent is limited. In looking for a way to help the business community that has been so good to us over the years, we came up with the idea to write ‘Ready-Made Marketing.’

Take the guesswork out of marketing.
Designed to help people succeed, the book is a quick and easy DIY marketing resource that enables those who don’t have marketing expertise (or the money to hire it) to market themselves, their services or their businesses and start seeing immediate results. Ready-Made Marketing is not about writing marketing plans or strategies; it provides practical, customizable templates for a variety of business-building situations, step-by-step instructions for using proven and effective marketing tactics, and over 400 technology resources that are affordably priced or free.

Abbreviate what you have to do to lighten your workload.
The book is action-oriented; it’s not a novel to read through nor does it require a major time commitment. For example, if you need to write a cold email, you can choose from a variety of templates or if you need a video script, you just go in and pick one. Or if you need a technology resource (e.g. video recording software, content creation tools, podcast hosting, among others) you can select from 21 categories or use the authors’ choices.

FREE OFFER…Quick Links to Technology (Click Here)

Whether you’re starting a new business, want to increase revenue for your current business, or know of someone who needs to jumpstart sales, this book is a game-changer.

To make 2022 a better year, check out Ready-Made Marketing.

 

*According to the U.S. Census Bureau:

  • In 2020, there were more than 4.4 million new businesses; the highest total on record.
  • This is a 24.3% increase from 2019; 51.0% higher than the 2010-2019 average.
  • ½ million new businesses were started in January 2021 alone.

 

BersonDeanStevens has been a recognized brand strategy and marketing leader for over 25 years, including over a decade in marketing and sales automation. We work in partnership with you to differentiate your brand and achieve your business goals. Client list.