10% of Small Business Marketing Plans Include Blogs

Anita Campbell writes on the Small Business Trends website that according to a recent HP survery, 10% of Small Business Marketing Plans Include Blogs. According to Anita:

Ten percent of small business owners in a recent study reported that they have included blogs in their marketing plans. And 16% plan to invest in blogs over the next 2 to 3 years.

This is from a study of small business owners that HP announced last week. The study was conducted by Harris Interactive in March of 2005, and was part of HP's activities during national Small Business Week. I was pleased to participate in discussions about the Harris/HP study results.

The HP study covered a wide variety of topics. It's an interesting study on a number of fronts, and I will be writing more about it.

But right now I want to focus on the information about small business blogs.

Of course, no actual count of business blogs today exists. But the number in the HP survey, suggesting how many business owners' marketing plans and future plans include blogs, is quite interesting, especially when you compare the numbers with those whose plans include websites. When you consider that not quite half of the small businesses surveyed even have websites, the fact that 10% are including plans for blogs is pretty remarkable.

I'm as surprised as Anita is that more than half of small businesses still don't have websites, but underwhelmed by the number who plan on including blogs in their marketing mix. It's one thing to "plan" a blog, but another thing altogether to create and maintain one.

You'll find the HP Survey here.