Small Business Owners Cautious with Marketing Money

New studies released today suggest that small business owners tend to avoid paying for marketing.The Yellow Pages Association's "Small Business Marketing Poll" found that almost two-thirds of small business owners prefer to keep marketing in-house. When they do spend money on marketing, here is how success is measured:

• The largest percentage (44%) of small business owners uses ROI to measure marketing program success.
• Small businesses also frequently use qualified leads and telephone inquiries -- 29% and 21%, respectively -- to measure success.
• Interestingly, 26% of small business owners do not use any type of measurement for their marketing programs.

• 59% of small businesses with a web site don't do paid search, according to a survey conducted by Microsoft adCenter. 90% of that number haven't even tried.