Good morning Marketer, what does the future of small businesses look like?
With COVID-19 striking a heavy blow to the global economy, SMBs are at unprecedented odds – facing an existential threat unlike anything in the last 75 years. The survival of small businesses as a group matters to digital marketers, agencies and SaaS companies because marketing spend from small businesses represents billions of dollars annually.
Typically, SMBs spend roughly $6,000 on average for advertising and marketing each year, though often less. “Let’s conservatively assume that the universe of SMB marketing spenders is 6 million,” writes Marketing Land’s Greg Sterling. “Hypothetically, that would represent $36 billion in annual marketing spend, some of which still goes to traditional media and offline marketing. But companies such as Intuit have argued the SMB holistic marketing spend annually exceeds $100 billion.”
With that in mind, it’s safe to say that small businesses make up a good chunk of change for Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook. Whether motivated by their own self-interest or not, the giants are stepping up to give SMBs a boost.
Google, for example, introduced support links for business profiles earlier this month for the U.S. Canada, UK, and other English speaking markets. Facebook previously made $100 million available in grants (including ad credits) to small businesses, with $40 million of that dedicated to the U.S. market. Yelp made a range of tools and services available for free to small business, especially restaurants and bars. It also implemented an SMB relief program worth $25 million, consisting of waived ad fees, free ads and various product upgrades. Other companies like Bing and Nextdoor have followed suit.
But the question, according to Greg, remains: “Can the combination of government loans and private fundraising keep more small businesses from running out of money?”
We hope so. Our industry relies on it.
Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor
