Chicago-Area Small Businesses Cite Customers, Local Events and Business-Friendly Environment as Best Aspects of Running a Business In Region.WALTHAM, Mass. -- Local survey also showed that Chicago-area small businesses view email marketing, direct mail, and online advertising as the most valuable methods for growing their businesses A recent survey of Chicago-area small and medium-sized businesses revealed that nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of business owners cited great customers, local events, or the area's business-friendly environment as the top reason why the Chicago region is a favorable place to own and run a business. Thirty-two percent of small businesses surveyed viewed the strength of the local economy or community support as other top qualities of doing business in the area (full results below*). The survey of more than 150 Chicago-area small businesses was conducted by Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com), the leading email marketing service for small businesses, associations and nonprofits. The survey also queried Chicago-area small businesses about their marketing practices, revealing that email marketing (59 percent), direct mail (22 percent), and online advertising (11 percent) are the most valuable marketing methods for growing their businesses. Radio and print advertising were tied for the fourth position, both at 3 percent, with yellow pages advertising coming in at 2 percent. Additionally, 85 percent of small businesses surveyed said that email marketing is an extremely or very important tool for growing their businesses. When asked about the cultural and entertainment benefits of living in Chicago, regional small businesses view local restaurants (28 percent), community programs (18 percent) and sports teams (17 percent) as their favorite aspects of living in the area. Small businesses also favored the Chicago area music scene (14 percent), theater (12 percent) and educational opportunities (11 percent). Chicago-area small businesses were also asked their preferences if they could have any local celebrity, civic or business leader endorse their businesses. Top celebrity choices included Oprah Winfrey “Oprah” redirects here. For the show, see The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history. (52 percent), celebrity chef In its strictest sense, a celebrity chef is a someone who has become well-known for his/her cooking. The first historical personality that fits this description is Martino da Como but in practical terms the term grew in popularity during the 1990s. , Charlie Trotter Charlie Trotter is a Chicago chef and restaurant owner. Biography A graduate of New Trier High School, Trotter started cooking professionally in 1982 after earning a degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (19 percent) and former Chicago Bears
*Included in the survey, small businesses were asked: "Why is Chicago the best place to own and run a business?" The results were as follows: Great customers 22% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Local events 21% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Business-friendly environment 19% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Local economy 16% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Community support 16% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Transportation options 5% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information about the survey or for additional results, please contact Tom Francoeur at 781-388-7900 ext. 205, or by email at tfrancoeur@topazpartners.com About Constant Contact With over 40,000 customers and a recent winner of SmallBusinessComputing.com's "Excellence in Technology Award," Constant Contact(R) is the leading permission Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing(R) service for small and medium businesses (SMBs) and associations. Constant Contact is a Web-based email Web-based email or webmail is a term referring to an e-mail service intended to be primarily accessed via a web browser, as opposed to through an application such as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, Mozilla's Thunderbird or Apple's Mail. marketing solution that enables small organizations to easily create and send professional HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. email newsletters, promotions, announcements and more with no technical expertise required. Designed and priced for SMBs, Constant Contact is affordable, easy-to-use and includes a free 60-day trial at: www.constantcontact.com. The service is marketed through over 1,500 Business Partners and more than 100 marquee channel partners including American Express OPEN, AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. , Corel, FTD FTD Financial Times Deutschland (German sister newspaper of the Financial Times) FTD Frontotemporal Dementia FTD Fitted FTD Federal Tax Deposit FTD Flight Training Device FTD Fastest Time of the Day , IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Interland, Network Solutions, Register.com, Website Pros and Yahoo Search Marketing See Yahoo! Search Marketing. . Constant Contact is a founding member of the Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC ESPC Energy Savings Performance Contract ESPC Equality State Policy Center ESPC Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre (Scotland) ESPC E-Mail Service Provider Coalition ESPC European Space Power Conference ), a group formed to fight spam while protecting the delivery of legitimate email. Constant Contact is funded by Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Longworth Venture Partners and Hudson Ventures. For more information, please call 781-472-8100. Roving, Roving Software, Constant Contact, the Constant Contact Logo, Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing, The smart way to reach your customers, Email Marketing Made Easy, Email Marketing 101, Email Marketing Diva, Email Marketing Hints & Tips, and SafeUnsubscribe are trademarks or service marks or registered trademarks or service marks of Roving Software Incorporated d/b/a Constant Contact. All other company and product names may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. |
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