Marketing is most vital to SMEs – study

Britain’s small-to-medium businesses are the most likely to cite marketing as essential to their success and also the most inclined to invest in marketing, according to a marketing trends survey from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). The survey was conducted by MORI.

Two-thirds of marketers questioned said that marketing is a high priority within their organisation, while only eight per cent thought it to be of low priority.

Companies with an annual turnover of less than &£1m spend just over ten per cent of their turnover on marketing, significantly more than the national average figure of 7.2 per cent.

The CIM survey adds that only one-third of marketers in small companies claim that it is difficult to secure funding for marketing activities. By contrast two-thirds of those in the largest organisations find obtaining a budget for marketing “problematic”.

It is in the small organisations that marketers are most likely to be represented at board level. More than three-quarters of the smallest companies have a marketer on board. This figure falls to 37 per cent in companies with an annual turnover of between &£51m and &£100m, but rises to 51 per cent in companies turning over more than &£100m a year.