Third of SMEs 'don't know' what marketing is

Date: 23rd September 2008

A third of the UK's small business start-ups do not know what marketing entails, research has discovered.

A survey by projectword.com of over 3,000 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) discovered that 40 per cent of new companies start with no kind of marketing plan.

Most worryingly, 33 per cent of small firms do not understand what marketing is and how it can help their company flourish.

Jamie Delo, founder of projectword.com, said: "These statistics establish the downfall of many new companies that just assume consumers will have heard of their website."

He added that lack of marketing causes almost half of all new business start-ups to fail every year, with only one in four surviving past their fourth year.

According to the statistics, many new business managers assume that word of mouth will suffice for their company to succeed.

In an article in the Liverpool Echo last week, an accountant suggested that "going green" could help SMEs survive the recession.