In writing about small businesses for about 7-8 years now, I’ve noticed one thing time and time again: Surveys about SMBs and technology (or marketing) often have conflicting data — sometimes in the same survey!
That’s the case with the recent 2013 AT&T Small Business Technology Poll, which indicated that a strong majority of small business owners are use mobile devices at work … but few of these same businesses have websites that are optimized for mobile devices.
Crazy, huh?
The numbers show that 69 percent of the SMBs surveyed use tablets at work, and 85 percent use smartphones.
On the other hand, less than one-third of respondents say they have a mobile-friendly website. The survey doesn’t reveal the exact percentage here, but says “Nearly one-third of small businesses use mobile-friendly websites to engage with customers.”
On the bright side, 71 percent said they plan to spend more money this year on mobile marketing, so hopefully some of that will include developing mobile-friendly websites.
This is one of the topics that we touch on during our Local U workshops — the fact that consumers are getting local business information in a variety of ways now, from desktop computers to smartphones to tablets to voice-assisted searching and much more. Mobile used to be an optional, luxury item for small businesses, but that’s changing quickly.
(Photo by closari via Creative Commons.)
