Image Credit: MielkiaD via Flickr
You know what they say, statistics never lie. In small business marketing, underneath some important facts lie good reasons why your business must consider changing the way you market your products and services. With this in mind, I’ve put together a list of facts that you might not know that could change your marketing strategy.
1. Around 12.6 million people access the internet each year, with 64% of those using it to buy or order goods and services – Source: Household Use of Information & Technology, Australian Bureau of Statistics 2009
This statistic is the latest from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2009 so you can bet the figures would be higher in 2011. It makes you wonder why so many Australian businesses don’t have a website or those that do, don’t sell their product on-line. The point here is, every business in Australia should have a website – it’s that simple. And this is a good lead-in to my next statistic.
2. 65% of Australian businesses don’t have a website – Source: MYOB Business Monitor
This statistic is the reason MYOB and Google have teamed up to offer 50,000 free websites to Australian businesses. In addition to this, figures show that industries more likely to not have a website are trades/construction and agriculture. So if you’re a tradesman without a website, do yourself a favour and get yourself a website and get one-step ahead of your competition.
3. 35% of Australia’s mobile population own a smart phone with this figure expected to reach 50% in 2011.- Source: Nielsen Australian Online Consumer Report 2011 and Telstra
As we know, mobile phone penetration in the Australian market is greater than 100%. That is, there are more mobile phone accounts than there are people. With smartphones such as the iPhone and Android handsets reaching 35%, these phones are fast becoming the way consumers connect with social media and the internet. This points to a growing market for mobile friendly websites, mobile advertising and increasing popularity of Apps for consumers to get access to content. In the future, small businesses must consider how they will use smart phones to drive connections and transactions with their customers.
4. Over 80% of consumers prefer email as the main method of communication with companies – Source: From the Inbox Report, Merkle 2009
This figure is from 2009, but it’s safe to assume the figure is similar in 2011 give or take a few % points. So it begs the question, does your business make it easy for customers to communicate by email? If not then you had better make it easier real quick. This figure highlights that consumers in most cases don’t want to talk to anyone, so you need to give them the option to contact by email. This means adding contact forms to websites and visible email addresses to your marketing materials.
5. Average open rates for emails in databases with 5-499 contacts in Australia is 34.2% - Source: Vision 6 Australian Email Marketing Metrics 2010
So it’s time to stop beating yourself up because only 50% of your emails to your 400 strong email list are actually opened. You’re actually ahead of the game if these are your figures. If your database has 500-999 names then the figure is 30.3% and for databases with 1000+ names the figure is 23%. These percentages can also be influenced by your content and when you send the emails. If your open rates are below these then of course you need to take a look at your email marketing and make some changes to improve your open rate.
6. Sending emails at 8am generates average open rates of 51.4%. Sending at 9am decreases the average to 33%- Source: Aweber Delivery Results
This statistic is provided by Aweber, one of the worlds leading email marketing platforms. They show the average figures of their users so the sample size is large. It shows the impact that timing can have on the success of your email marketing so why not experiment with sending your emails earlier, you might get a better response.
So there you are. Some of these statistics you may have heard of and others you may not. Hopefully they help you to make better decisions when you market your small business. Let me know what you think or please share any other stats that can add to the conversation.
Chris Dale
Chris Dale is the founder and managing director of MarketingHQ. He loves to help businesses of all sizes get more out of their marketing – and by more he means more sales! Find out more about him here or feel free to connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.
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