I Asked 110 Startups About Digital Marketing in 2015 & 2017. Here's What I Found.

I Asked 110 Startups About Digital Marketing in 2015 & 2017. Here’s What I Found.

Digital Marketing, Marketing, Startup • Comments (1)

In 2015 I carried out a survey to help the Digital Marketing industry better understand the needs and priorities of startup businesses. I got feedback from 55 startup owners and published the results HERE. After 2 years passed, I thought it would be interesting to re-run the same survey in 2017 to another group of 55 startups and compare the results. This is what I found.

The survey ran from February 21st to March 31st and collected a total of 55 separate responses. Each respondent was asked 13 questions related to their business and it’s digital marketing activity.

Use the quick link menu below to navigate to the relevant section:

Who Took Part
Summary
Questions, Answers & Findings
Raw Data
Prize Winners
Special Thanks

So, Who Took Part?

Below is a brief break down of the startups that took part in the 2017 survey:

Country of Origin (and number of respondents):

35 in the UK (35), USA (4) , India (3), Australia (2), Austria (2), Slovenia (2), Singapore (2), France (1), UAE (1), Bangladesh (1), Ireland (1) and Unknown (1)

Industry (and number of respondents):

Information Technology (11), Health Care (8), Telecommunications & Media (6), Retail, Hospitality & Food (6), Creative Sector (6), Finance & Legal Services (5), Business Services (4), Consumer Goods/Manufacturing (2), Fashion (2), Education & Not-for-Profit (1), Energy, Utilities, Oil & Gas (1), Food & Agriculture (1), Pharmaceuticals (1) and Transportation (1)

Role in the Business:
16 Owners, 11 Co-Founders, 11 Founders, 7 Directors, 7 Managers and 3 Others

Year Founded:

4 started this year (2017),
27 started between 2015 & 2016,
14 started between 2010 & 2014,
10 started in 2009 or earlier.

Customers:

60% sell to businesses
11% sell to consumers
38% sell to both

Summary

So to summarise my survey findings and thoughts:

Confidence in Paid Media delivering an ROI has increased 109% since 2015, whilst Owned Media increased 14% since 2015.
Earned Media on the other hand, saw a drop in confidence of 36% since 2015.
The number of startups seeking help with Digital Strategy & Planning increased 92% since 2015.
There has been a 49% increase in the number of startups considering or having digital marketing training.
There has been a 30% increase in the number of startups documenting a digital marketing strategy.
Startup owners said one of their main goals was driving brand awareness, however very few said they had Display Advertising as a priority.
The number of startups putting half or more of their marketing budget into digital has dropped 13% since 2015.
Startup’s use of an in-house marketer or marketing team has increased by 74% since 2015.
Startup’s use of free analytics tools to measure digital marketing increased 15% since 2015.
The importance of Content Marketing as a tactic for startups has decreased 14% since 2015.
Where as Social Media Marketing has seen an 18% increase in importance for startups since 2015.
Startups are clearly keen to invest time and budget in digital marketing in order to deliver results.
There is a surprising lack of any documented strategy / planning. Perhaps hubs and bodies (e.g. Manchester Digital or SpaceportX) should be offering more startup advice or opportunities for cooperative networking that helps them plan?
With so just 13% of startups investing in an agency or consultant, should these suppliers alter their cost models to cater for startups? Perhaps more startups should be able to pay via stock, skills, service or products?
An over arching question is how to make the above work commercially when startups are typically light on budget?

Questions, Results & Findings

Below I have briefly run through the main 2017 survey questions, key findings and graphed results and comparison to the 2015 survey findings.