SMEs ‘spend more on tea and coffee than Internet’

Many companies are spending more on hot drinks for staff than on their Internet marketing, according to Web design company MAD Productions.

A survey of almost 1,600 companies in the south of England found that 43 per cent of them had bigger budgets for tea and coffee over the past year than for the development of Internet strategies.

The average Internet marketing spend of smallor medium-size businesses (SME) in the survey was £4,200, compared with an average tea and coffee budget of £10,000 to £11,000. The eight-month survey also found serious problems with the websites of the companies involved. According to the research, 54 per cent of marketers said their site content was created by the IT department and they were unhappy with the way the site is structured.

Just over 70 per cent of the companies failed to register with a search engine or arrange to have their sites given optimum exposure on them. Over half were unaware that it was necessary to subscribe to search engines. Over 64 per cent were unhappy with the effectiveness of their site.