Feb. 3, 2017—Seventy percent of small- to medium-sized businesses polled by GetResponse said they will increase their digital and web-based marketing budgets in 2017.

GetResponse, an email marketing software company serving over 350,000 small businesses, commissioned the study to examine expected digital marketing investments among US-based small and medium-sized businesses in 2017. The study polled 200 U.S.-based business owners at the end of 2016, and also looked into the channels most likely to drive spending.

Of the companies indicating in the poll they would increase their budgets, 30 percent said the budget will “increase considerably,” while 40 percent said it will “increase somewhat.”

According to the study, 28 percent of the remaining businesses polled said their budget would remain unchanged. Only 2 percent said their digital marketing budgets would decrease in 2017.

“Digital marketing is vital for small businesses and our survey numbers bear that out,” said Simon Grabowski, GetResponse CEO and Founder. “Marketers are investing accordingly, given the substantial return on investment delivered through web-based campaigns.”

The next channel projected to drive digital marketing spend in 2017 is said to be mobile marketing (50 percent)—either app or web-based—followed by email marketing (42 percent).

Other channels driving growth are: video production (28 percent), “search marketing, including paid search” and “content creation and management” (both at 26 percent), “data collection and analytics” and “corporate website maintenance and development” (both at 23 percent), and, “commerce experiences” (16 percent).