One very simple way for small businesses to compete with the big players in their markets  is with the help of marketing automation  such as email and social media monitoring. Marketing automation helps small businesses appear and behave like a brand or corporation.  Techaisle recently published an infographic  on the adoption, benefits, and use of marketing automation by SMBs. According to Techaisle, SMBs average two users and spend $180 month on marketing automation – which is a big investment for smaller SMBs (less than 10 employees) whose average ad budget is $206 a month according to our Local Commerce Monitor™ (LCM) survey of small- and medium-sized businesses.

Techaisle states that SMB’s top three reasons for using marketing automation are acquire customers, cross sell and monitor the market… all behaviors that help small businesses work more efficiently. In our LCM survey, we ask SMBs about their use of marketing automation. The top three marketing automation services SMBs use/plan to use fall into the the top three reasons SMBs use marketing automation. Our top three are email marketing (acquire/cross sell), satisfaction surveys (monitor the market) and online leads management (acquire/cross sell).

The Techaisle study also looks at barriers to use by SMBs which point out the simplicity needed when selling marketing automation to this group: ease of use, price, and integration. Our LCM data for the top three reasons SMBs adopt a new technology shows similar results: reliability, ease of use, and most cost effective. Companies considering complementary business tools like marketing automation should consider vendors and offers that keep it simple for these SMBs to use and grow their businesses.