How SMBs Learn About Products & Services

How do SMBs first learn about products and services for their business? To find out, we surveyed 500 U.S. SMB principals on the information sources they use at the awareness stage of the sales cycle.

Despite the rapid adoption of gen AI for search, traditional search remains the top information source across all SMB size segments. After that, though, there are interesting differences by headcount.

Very small businesses (VSBs, with 1-19 employees) rely on their peers to learn about products and services for their business, followed by email newsletters, general news sites, and tech news sites.

Small businesses (SBs, with 20–99 employees) rely on email newsletters second and industry associations or trade groups third, followed by YouTube. News and tech sites, Facebook, and Google’s AI tool Gemini are tied for fifth.

For midsized businesses (MBs, with 100–500 employees), YouTube and peers/colleagues are tied for second, tech news sites are fourth, and general news sites and Reddit are tied for fifth.

Top Five Awareness Information Sources by Headcount

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