Small Companies Now Takes Digital Marketing So Serious

Digital marketing is now a big deal for small companies like local bakeries, regional accountants growing into big business.

Those small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMB) are increasingly turning to grow outside firms to handle their digital outreach through different Types of Marketing Strategies, according to industry sources. Among their goals is to become more social media-savvy:

for instance, drawing a Facebook user on their phone clicking on a business page in a local shop.

Several digital marketing startups focused on smaller companies are looking to capitalize on the opportunity, and they are hungry for venture capital to fund their efforts.

They also could see interest from larger marketing technology players eyeing the SMB space. Big companies such as Sales-force are developing marketing solutions tailor-made for the small business community and should be interested in these types of targets to add capabilities, said Seth Rosenfield at middle-market investment bank Petsky Prunier.

The startup opportunity

The reason smaller businesses turn to startups for their marketing needs comes down to money. they "don't have big ad budgets to buy a retainer contract from a digital agency that might cost them $7000 a month," said Chris Herbert, spokesperson for Smart 1 Marketing.

Smart 1 based in Blacklick, Ohio, helps small and medium-sized businesses with website design and online marketing campaigns. It has about 32 employees with revenue exceeding $5 million and is trying to at least double in revenue by year-end, according to CEO Todd Swickard.

Vendasta Technologies, which provides marketing services for small businesses, is targeting organic expansion abroad and additional product development, CEO Brendan King said. The Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based company has about $.25 million in funding to date with backing from Vanedge Capital and Business Development Bank of Canada.

Companies like Buzzboard, Smart 1 and Vendasta should see healthy growth over the next few years through the expanding digital presence of SMBs,  Said marketing technology banker John Mattews of investment bank Oaklins Desilva+Phillips.

"As the world becomes more digital, SMBs have to adapt and in a lot of cases, they have been a bit slow to do this," he noted.

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