Infographic: Small businesses counting on events for engagement

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Local businesses are taking advantage of the cloud as well as event venues more than ever. According to new data out from Constant Contact about 40% of SMBs conducted some type of event in 2012 with workshops, classes and conferences topping the events list for business-to-business focused endeavors. On average, small businesses are hosting around 15 events per year.

Why events? For regional brands or local branches of national firms, educational events – held online or via mobile devices – are a cost-effective way to receive training for work. About 26% us events for training purposes; meanwhile nearly 20% say they’re focused on events to help generate more revenue and to attract new customers.

Some interesting findings in the report include:

• 71% of SMBs hosting events believe they are ‘important to success’
• More than half of B2B businesses host events for workshopping (63%), educational training (52%) or conferences (44%)
• Just over half (56%) of B2C brands host events for workshopping/lectures while under half focus events on education (48%) or social networking (47%)

Nearly all SMBs are taking on the planning of such events themselves rather than ‘hiring out’ the planning. As for how they’re promoting, most are taking to the social sphere, relying on the likes of Twitter or Facebook to invite people rather than calling. However, it’s interesting to note that while emailed invitations have decreased more than two-thirds (78% B2B, 68% B2C) of businesses continue using emailed invitations.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kristina Knight-1
Kristina Knight, Journalist , BA
Content Writer & Editor
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Kristina Knight is a freelance writer with more than 15 years of experience writing on varied topics. Kristina’s focus for the past 10 years has been the small business, online marketing, and banking sectors, however, she keeps things interesting by writing about her experiences as an adoptive mom, parenting, and education issues. Kristina’s work has appeared with BizReport.com, NBC News, Soaps.com, DisasterNewsNetwork, and many more publications.