Marketing Remains a Critical Issue for SMBs’ Selling Products Offline

June 24, 2008 – The growing importance of online marketing to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) was re-emphasized again today in a new report released by JupiterResearch. The report emphasizes the growing importance of online marketing not just for SMBs conducting their business online or heavily invested in e-commerce, but for all SMBs.

The numbers show that consumers’ online research habits are having a huge spillover effect onto their offline shopping habits. “For every $1 online users spent online in 2007,” JupiterResearch notes, “they spent roughly $6 on off-line purchases that were influenced by online research.”

While a storefront presence is still necessary to capture foot traffic for most SMBs, the exponential rise in the number of potential customers using Internet search – particularly, local search and mobile search – to make products and services choices should make capturing web traffic a similar priority for SMBs. The JupiterResearch numbers show that more and more consumers are “Windows” shopping, as well as window shopping.

The growing numbers of consumers who are surfing the Internet to make their product choices indicate that Internet advertising and establishing an effective online marketing presence are already business-critical issues of importance to all SMBs – and that importance is only likely to rise.