I would have thought that it only matters that their customers have broadband access.

If the SMEs don’t have broadband they don’t do much online except (slow) email. But yes I agree not all customers are on social networks either and for some businesses it’s not actually relevant. I run the online presence (from a city far away) for my parents (in rural Ireland) – very little activity online in the area and very little business generated online unfortunately.

Hi Dave,

Yes, it’s true that we offer digital marketing services, amongst other things. Then again it’s unlikely that we would have any interest in running this research if we were chicken farmers ;-) But no this is not a paid for story and we are happy that this story had enough interest for The Journal to pick it up.

We decided to run this research and the free event in conjunction with a number of companies who also shared my interests in this area because of the anecdotal evidence that pointed to SMEs not engaging properly, engaging incorrectly and in some cases doing too much of the things that they shouldn’t do.

Anyone who runs a digital marketing agency would agree that their customers would be better served creating content about their business and posting it on their websites and blogs rather than trying to manage a PPC campaign that they don’t fully understand. This is at the heart of the message we are giving to the attendees of this event.

It is true that much of the results we saw (and continue to receive) backs up our anecdotal evidence, however there were some very eye-opening datapoints. Namely the high abandon rate of Adwords and Facebook advertising amongst SMEs.

So, of course we are not a charity and it may be that my company or one of the other organisers will benefit from new customer engagements and they would be welcome, but our main goal here is to educate attendees and ultimately brand awareness for all involved. In other words, attraction marketing in its purest form.

The datapoint that interests me is actually the one you point out. Not so much the high abandon rate, as the suggestion that fully 50% of Irish SMEs either have used or still use Google Adwords. I was quite surprised by that, it does not tally at all with anecdotal evidence as I’d see it. I’d be far more likely to guess that 50% of SMEs have no idea what Adwords is. Of course it depends on the sample and the type of businesses.

But I do agree that PPC campaigns are not easy to manage in a way that ensure a decent return on investment – whether the investment is in time or money.

I’d encourage a business thinking of getting into this to seek out someone with a Google Adwords Certification as a starting point, then to speak to several previous customers of anyone they are considering employing. Every marketer and his dog claims expertise and great results on their website. Many, many businesses have been suckered in by this sort of marking bumff, only to find themselves with much lighter pockets and little else to show for the experience. It’s one of those areas where really and truly you cannot be too careful.

Its funny how the people who did this research last update their twitter feed a month ago! They are hardly setting a good example.

Hi David,

I think this is the whole point of the survey and the event we are going to run. We talk about regular updates and being reasonable with the expectations. To give an analogy from real-life, I am sure that we would all want to exercise every day and fitness experts would say that would be excellent, but even exercising once a week is better than nothing if that’s all you can do and IF you exercise correctly when you can.

With that said, organising this event has taken it’s toll on my ability to engage in my usual activities, so thanks for the kick in the backside ;-)

Fair enough Franco, I see you updated your Twitter feed! ;)

I don’t know anything about you or your company so this isn’t directed at you. My point is more of a reflection the whole digital marketing industry in Ireland. There seems to be a lot of traditional marketing professionals jumping on the digital bandwagon that don’t seem to understand it, they are there because it the next BIG thing. Many SME’s are being led by the blind in some cases. Its the lack of digital marketing knowledge, experience and talent that has this country so far behind the rest of the world in this area. Having said that there is some great work starting to emerge and it can only improve with the next generation of marketing professionals coming out of college with knowledge and focus on new media.

Really? A two hour event where a few people with services to sell get to market themselves is so hard to organise?

But back to the survey. How large was the sample – enough for the results to be statistically significant?

How were respondents chosen? Was it self selecting or did you seek people out? How great was the spread of business type/size? What methodology was used to ensure that the questions were phrased so as to elicit accurate responses?

Is there any independent verification of methodology or polling/analysis of results?

In summary, does it have any validity or usefulness at all, aside from its function in promoting some marketing event?

Hi Jimbo,

The survey is still open, so we have not created the final results or formulated a report. We will be closing the survey in the coming weeks and will then publish the results fully on our website and the websites of the other event organisers.