What are the major headaches that SMBs are experiencing in the new marketing world? How are they adjusting to this rapidly evolving digital marketing technology?

That's what the local search blog LocaliQ aimed to determine in its most recent Small Business Marketing Trends report, in which it analyzes various key issues related to the growth of SMBs and how business owners will overcome these significant challenges.

The LocaliQ team surveyed 730 small businesses to better understand what's keeping them up at night, what platforms they focus on for top-of-the-funnel engagement, AI adoption, and much more.

 You can find the full report here, but in this blog post, we're going to dive into some of the key takeaways.

First, the data reports that social media marketing is the most important channel for SMB promotion ahead of SEO and email outreach.
Whereby it could represent an opportunity missed regarding the maximization of your focus on the discovery via search engines, while video marketing is also way down the list.

Of course, SMBs don't have the resources to focus on these elements every time, so leaning on social platforms makes sense. But there could be more value in these expanded means of discovery, alongside your social marketing efforts.

In particular, the most popular marketing platform among SMBs is Facebook.
This makes sense because Facebook has the most users, but LinkedIn ranking so high on this list does make me question the make-up of participants in this survey.

For marketing performance statistics, it shows that SMBs are mostly happy with the performance of their search ads.
Video ads stood in second place, though were only used by 29 percent of SMBs, and social media marketing is way down the list.

That probably speaks to a change in algorithm for each platform that punishes links off-site, which has made it harder to measure effectiveness for social campaigns run by SMBs. Yet, all of that notwithstanding, digital marketing options rank above "traditional media" promotions.

Video ads are also the kind where most SMBs are interested, and the rise of short-form content very clearly is driving more demand.
Again, likely a capacity issue, this time an issue of resources with SMBs having less capacity to create video-type content, but the latest developments in AI ad tools will provide more options on this front.
It is indicated that most SMBs start using generative AI tools as part and parcel of a regular process, mainly for the generation of content and management of social media.
There are so many ways that this new wave of AI tools will be able to help the SMBs, and it is worthwhile to explore these as an avenue for timesaving and cost savings in development. And soon you'll also be able to create video promotions through AI tools too. Which could look a little weird but, as the quality improves, that'll provide another avenue by which SMBs can make video content.

These are some interesting insights into the latest SMB trends and where they are focusing their marketing spend. Again, though, I would question the popularity of LinkedIn as a marketing tool for SMBs, and/or the actual SMBs surveyed in this group, but the general trends provide some good bookmarking to see where brands are focusing their efforts.