Exploring the state of small business advertising in 2019: Tangible trends without the ‘millennial’ hook

Settle down, one and all, for yet another piece of research which aims to study the habits of millennials, the mythical catch-all marketing category. Yes, someone who was born when Joe Dolce topped the UK charts is part of the same group as someone born when the Spice Girls hit the summit with Wannabe. But can this latest study tell us anything aside from tiresome platitudes? In this instance, yes – but you have to look away from the millennial angle to find it. A new report from The Manifest – an off-shoot of B2B research firm Clutch.co – has focused on business size as well as age classification when it came to advertising and marketing campaigns with interesting results. The research, which polled 529 small businesses across the US, explored the more innovative methods SMBs employ in an attempt to punch above their weight. Overall, two thirds (64%) of small businesses polled said they use social media regularly, compared with online (49%) and events (34%). Print (36%), TV (22%) and radio (22%) all got perhaps more of an airing than expected.