A recent report from Citibank found 70 percent of respondents use their company website as a marketing channel, while 41 percent are using social media channels to spread the word about a business.
The survey also showed 60 percent of businesses plan to increase activity on their websites, with 40 percent vowing to use more social media and 38 percent wanting to use more email marketing tactics.
With all of these innovations in technology used for marketing purposes, business owners should be aware that social media outlets also represent a risk, as they can become channels for disgruntled employees or clients to damage a company’s reputation or disseminate data. Therefore, companies should protect themselves by acquiring a necessary form of business insurance.
Another interesting bit of information elicited by the survey is that 54 percent of business owners under the age of 45 are using social media, while only 36 percent of older business owners are using social platforms.
The information from this survey supplements the results from another survey conducted by Staples, which found small businesses only have about $2,000 allocated in marketing budgets, on average.
