66% of US small business owners use mobile technology - report

According to a report issued by online marketing company Constant Contact, while this majority adoption is promising, of the 34 percent not using any mobile device or solution for their business, a resounding 65 percent have no plans to do so in the future, mainly citing a lack of customer demand.

Additionally, the report has found that small businesses use mobile technology mainly for email and social media marketing, with 73 percent conducting social media marketing and 71 percent conducting email marketing. The report has also revealed that 44 percent advertise through social platforms, 34 percent have a mobile-optimized website, 18 percent run a mobile tablet-based payment point-of-sale and 18 percent use mobile apps to manage operations, like accounting. When asked what types of mobile/social advertising they currently employ, 97 percent of respondents said social media. Location-based promotions came in a distant second at 17 percent and text message came in third at 15 percent.

Moreover, the report has revealed that 70 percent of mobile-optimized websites of small businesses are social-media optimized, 44 percent contain a menu, 40 percent contain individual product listings and 39 percent contain videos.

The survey has also found that in the battle of iOS vs. Android, iOS is the clear winner. Among small business owners, iPhone users trump Android users 66 percent to 39 percent, while iPad users trump Android tablet users 49 percent to 15 percent.

Mobile apps have been found to play a growing role in how small businesses manage operations with 82 percent of respondents using a calendar/time management app, 74 percent using a customer communications app, 52 percent using a GPS and mapping app, 44 percent using an accounting/invoicing app, 44 percent using an app for industry news/information consumption and 29 percent of polled using a travel planning app.

Finally, the survey has revealed the reasons why small business owners choose not to use mobile: 56 percent of polled said their customers haven’t expressed demand for mobile communications; 47 percent said their customers haven’t expressed demand for mobile payment solutions; 36 percent said they are interested in mobile solutions but don’t know enough about how to best use them; 33 percent said they’re interested in mobile solutions but haven’t had time to implement any yet; 31 percent said they don’t have a work-/business-related smartphone; and 28 percent said mobile is not relevant to their industry/business.