How will your peer small / medium business (SMB) marketers reach their goals in 2015? What is their business outlook, and what tactics will they use to acquire and engage with SMBs?

Revenue expectations are strong

Marketers are feeling very optimistic about 2015. 94% expect revenues to be up from 2014; more than three out of four (77%) expect them to grow by double digits.

Sales support takes the lion’s share

Marketers have allocated the biggest share of budget, on average, for sales support – such as presentations and collateral to enable their sales teams to engage effectively with SMBs. Even in this age of online and mobile marketing, salespeople play a critical role in closing business.

Content marketing set for fastest growth

On average, marketers will increase spending on content marketing more than any other tactic – almost three out of four (73%) will increase their content marketing budget in 2015. Social media (66%) and search (61%) are the next fastest-growing tactics.

Marketers connect to LinkedIn

Marketers will connect with LinkedIn in 2015; it is set for the fastest growth of any social media site, 70% of respondents will increase their spending on it in 2015. Twitter (54%) and Facebook (47%) get the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

Content across the sales cycle

When asked which content formats work best across the sales cycle, marketers rated blogs most effective for driving site traffic; emails with promotions (as opposed to email newsletters) for both lead capture (57%) and prospect / customer nurture (36%); and an online resource center (50%) to enable prospects to conduct product or service research.