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The
forecast said by that year the amount of money
that SMBs will allocate to traditional
advertising will plunge from 52% in
2010 to just 30% in 2015. The 70% lion's
share will go to digital/online media
(mobile, social, online directories, online
display, digital outdoor), performance-based
commerce (pay-per-click, deals, couponing)
and customer retention business solutions
(email, reputation and presence management,
websites, social marketing,
calendaring/appointment-setting).
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Image: digitalart
/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
This
tectonic shift will obviously create a huge
market opportunity for businesses
serving SMBs and developing SMB tools
that will help them transition to the
new media world. Overall,
U.S. SMB spending on media,
marketing and business solutions will
grow from $22.4 billion in 2010
to $40.2 billion in 2015,
representing a compound annual growth
rate (CAGR) of 12%. SMB spending
on digital/online media will grow
from $5.4 billion in 2010 to $16.6
billion in 2015, a phenomenal CAGR
of 24.9%!
By
contrast, SMB spending on traditional
advertising will be essentially flat during
the forecast period, experiencing a
meager 0.6% CAGR, from $11.8
billion in 2010 to $12.1 billion
in 2015. So which side of the fence
would you rather play on? |
As
one example of this trend, BIA/Kelsey President Neal
Polachek
noted, "With
the advent of daily deals to drive
customer acquisition, SMBs are now increasingly
focused on leveraging technological solutions to
engage, grow and retain a higher percentage of
their customers. As this trend accelerates,
these SMBs will turn to outside providers - media
companies as well as pure-play technology
providers - to harness simple tools, which
will enable them to maximize the long-term value
of each new customer they acquire." Despite
the current economic malaise, there are going to
be a lot of opportunities online over the
next few years that can continue to keep you
ahead of the pack.
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Speaking
of daily deals, as Neal Polacheck did
above, just two
weeks ago I told you about
domain broker/developer Andrew
Rosener launching a new site
at DX.com
that aggregated daily deals from
multiple sites in one location. Today,
in another example of how hot this space
has become, Rosener told me DX.com has
already been purchased by a major
player in the online daily deal space - DealExtreme.com
- for an undisclosed price (undisclosed,
but a figure that made Andrew very
happy).
That
may be the fastest execution of an exit
strategy that I've ever seen! Adam
Strong wrote about the sale earlier
today at DomainNameNews.com.
Adam actually had a hand in the polished
"look" of DX.com that may have
helped attract a suitor so quickly.
Strong, a long time domain
investor/developer, is also a principal
in Logo.com,
the company that designed the DX.com
logo for Rosener.
As
nice as it is, it looks like the logo
was retired with the sale though. With a
well-established website already in
place, DealExtreme.com's main interest
was acquiring the rare two-letter
domain DX.com to use as a quick
shortcut to their site (DX.com already
redirects to DealExtreme.com). |
Andrew
Rosener |
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