Didn't have time to sift through all the industry news coverage this month? Don't worry - we've got you covered! Here are a few articles you definitely don't want to miss:
SMBs Need Digital Expertise
According to a study conducted by BrightLocal, 37% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) plan on spending more on digital in the next 12 months. However, despite this projected increase in digital spending, a lack of skillset, budget, and time could potentially stall these efforts. eMarketer recently surveyed SMBs’ attitudes toward digital marketing, and the amount of advertisers who understood and were able to execute digital in-house fell from 40% to 29%, marking an 11% decrease from 2013 to 2014, respectively. In addition to a lack of digital expertise, a few other challenges were cited: 17% of respondents indicated that budget was an issue, while 10% indicated that a lack of time was problematic. Despite smaller budgets, SMBs did report that they saw the value in paying a marketing expert to handle digital for their firms. Read the entire article here!
Loyalty Remains King in Mobile Campaign Type
According to an eMarketer and Salesforce Marketing Cloud study, 46% of marketers have used some form of mobile marketing. When analyzing the effectiveness of mobile campaign types, loyalty campaigns were considered 86% effective by marketers, closely followed by win-backs, mobile-exclusive deals, and keyword conversation campaigns. Additionally, mobile loyalty efforts were considered the most popular and effective type of mobile campaigns, used by 37% of respondents, with a large percentage using the channel for holiday or event campaigns. Follow the trend here!