Small Businesses Are Accelerating the Use of Digital Marketing, Turning to the Cloud and Ironically Still Using Direct Marketing, According to a New Research Report by Business.com

CARLSBAD, Calif., April 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Two out of three business-to-business marketers are investing more to engage with the small to medium-sized business (SMB) audience over the next 12 to 36 months (CMO Council). In the latest Small Business Pulse report, Business.com collected purchasing behavior data from those small businesses (defined as 50 or fewer employees) who visited Business.com in Q3 2013 for resources, products and services. The report discloses where small businesses are allocating their 2014 budgets and which products and services they're looking to acquire, consequently creating several unique content marketing opportunities for B2B marketers.

"We are seeing the same trends that other publishers are: content marketing spend is on the rise and mobile marketing is still a mystery; however, we are also seeing an increase in spending on more traditional purchases like call center software and web design services," says Betsy Scuteri, Sr. Director of Marketing at Business.com. "Much like in 2011, companies are refreshing their site designs to keep up with trends in the marketplace (responsive design, mobile user agents, etc.)."

Some other key insights from the report include:

• Only a quarter of small businesses are interested in purchasing mobile marketing services
• Online marketing is thriving, and 70% of marketing budgets are going digital by 2015
• 29% of businesses looking to expand with small business loans are investing in web design
• 16% of SMBs searching for merchant services are also interested in upgrading their POS systems
• Marketers are using mobile to bridge the gap between direct mail and digital

"In 2013, Business.com delivered over 1.3 billion impressions, 25 million clicks and over 300,000 leads for our advertising customers," says CEO Tony Uphoff. "This extraordinary breadth and depth of data serves as a unique, ongoing marketing research center, allowing us to understand how business professionals are using digital media today, what products and services businesses are buying and what type of digital marketing is driving engagement between buyer and seller. We're excited to share some of this data in our latest BDC Pulse piece on the purchasing habits of SMBs."

Download the full report and findings here: http://www.business.com/resources/march14-small-business-pulse/

About Business.com
Business.com Media, Inc. helps over 30 million buyers from small to medium-size businesses each year to discover, compare, and purchase the products and services they need. These buyers come to Business.com to cut through the clutter of online search results and avoid having to sort out the huge number of individual vendor sites. The Small Business Pulse is produced monthly providing timely data and analysis for SMB leaders on how to engage this lucrative market.

Business.com is a JMI Equity portfolio company and based in Carlsbad, California. Visit us at www.business.com, subscribe to the blog, call 888-441-4466, or follow us on Twitter @BusinessDotCom and @B2BOnlineMktg.

SOURCE Business.com Media Inc.