Part
01
of one
Part
01
What is the total Canadian SME spend on Marketing vs Advertising
Hello! Thanks for your request about the total amount Canadian SME spend on Marketing vs Advertising.
The short version is that approximately $36 billion is spent per year on marketing by Canada's SMEs. We can further extrapolate a minimum annual advertising expenditure of approximately $8 billion for SMEs.
Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
FINDINGS
BETWEEN MARKETING AND ADVERTISING
Advertising is a component of Marketing, and this research found little statistical differentiation between the two in published studies and analyses, with most sources using the terms interchangeably. However, I was able to find significant figures showing the amounts spent on advertising vis-a-vis marketing as a whole.
As explained by an industry source, The Balance, ''Advertising is the largest expense of most marketing plans, with public relations following in a close second and market research not falling far behind. The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a pie. Inside that pie, you have slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, and community involvement. Advertising only equals one piece of the pie in the strategy.''
MARKETING EXPENDITURE BY SMEs
1.17 million employer businesses exist in Canada, of which 1.14 million (97.9 percent) are small businesses, 21,415 (1.8 percent) are medium-sized businesses, and 2,933 (0.3 percent) are large enterprises.
A recent survey by BDC revealed that the average marketing budget for small and medium-sized businesses in Canada is $31,000.
Thus the total marketing spend by SMEs in Canada is
ADVERTISING EXPENDITURE By SMEs
According to Statista, Canadian businesses of all sizes spent $9.1 billion in total on advertising. As SMEs constitute over 99% of businesses in Canada, we can extrapolate a minimum annual advertising expenditure of $8 billion for SMEs.
The research also envisages growth in the advertising sector going forward, noting that ''Canada’s ad expenditures are projected to grow by 2.4 percent in 2017, compared to 2016. In comparison, the country’s southern neighbor is expected to spend less on advertising in the same timeframe.''
COMPANY SIZE AND MARKETING BUDGETS
The size of the company usually corresponds to the level of marketing spend. The BDC survey found that ''companies that have between 20 and 49 employees invest around $64,000 in marketing and sales on average, while businesses with 50 or more employees have an average annual marketing and sales budget of $103,000... 30% of SMEs invest less than $5,000 annually on marketing and sales activities. One out of four SMEs (26%) has no one specifically assigned to marketing.''
MISCELLANEOUS DATA
As of 2015, over 8.2 million people were employed by small businesses in Canada or 70.5% of the country's private labor force. Medium-sized businesses employed 2.3 million people, or 19.8%, while 1.1 million, or 9.7% were employed by large businesses.
SUMMARY
To sum it up, I was able to find that approximately $36 billion is spent per year on marketing by Canada's SMEs and a minimum of $8 billion is put towards advertising expenditure by SMEs. The amounts spent on marketing and advertising are usually commensurate with the size of the company, with larger-sized firms spending more than firms with lower numbers of employees.
Thanks for using Wonder! Please let us know if we can be of further help.