9 Statistics Every Business Owner Should Know About Marketing Your Local Business Online

As a small business owner you may be wondering if you should invest any time or money on marketing your local business online. After all you are already being pulled in a thousand directions by your business, your staff, your customers; and the last thing you need is another responsibility – especially if it won’t pay off.

I understand your concerns so in this article I aim to give you some facts that will help you make a better decision. To start with I think its important that you realize that search engines are now the number one media type consumers use to find local business like yours.

Your local customers prefer to use Google and Bing over the yellow pages, internet yellow pages, local newspapers, print white pages, television, direct mail, consumer review sites, and even radio.

Here are 9 Statistics To Show The Importance Of Marketing Your Small Business Online

1. “63% of Americans have substituted the internet and local search for phone books.” This statistic shows where your customers are migrating and where you should shift your marketing efforts.

2. “Yellow Page usage has dropped 55% since 1999 and continues to do so by 4% every year.” While advertising in the Yellow Pages may still be profitable, especially since a lot of your competitors are leaving that space, it does show the trend on where your customers are migrating

3. “More than 30% of ALL internet searches are local and include the location in the search.” This shows that your customers are searching for you and your business on their computers and their smart phones.
4. “According to Yahoo 92% of all business searchers start looking online, either at home of on their mobile phones.” This statistic is staggering to me and should highlight the importance of ensuring your business is showing up in the right place and in the right context.

5. “97% of consumers use online searches when researching products or services.” Again, another statistic that should catch your attention.

6. “73% of online activity is related to local content.” This is very impressive and further drives home the point that you need to ensure your business is ready for the internet revolution.

7. “82% of local searches result in an in-store visit, phone call, or purchase.” How impressive is that? This shows how essential it is for you to set up your site so its conducive for local customers looking for you online.

8. “Facebook and Twitter have a combined member base of over 1.5 Billion users and growing.” Your customers are literally spending hours a day on social media. Are you showing up in those locations where they are? Are you showing up in the right manner?

9. “The site ranked at the top of search results gets 42% of all clicks.” If you want to pull in customers from the Internet you want to ensure that you are ranking properly in the search engines.

We are in the middle of an Internet revolution and local business owners like you that want to ensure they are positioned for business success need to take some critically important steps. Being aware of these Nine statistics separate you from most business owners that aren’t even aware that this massive shift is occurring.