It’s been reported by Business Insider that SnapChat has started offering discounts and reimbursements aimed at small business marketers. To entice SMB’s into advertising on their platform, reimbursements will max out at greater than $1,500, or 1% of the overall budget when the spend exceeds $40,000.
There are several reasons why these discounts and incentives have popped up now, and specifically for small business owners and advertisers.
According to Business Insider, new small business advertising will be critical to Snapchat’s ability to drive revenue and fully leverage its focus on location based marketing, and this is a challenge for the social media platform. Even though an estimated 40% of Americans between 18-34 years of age use Snapchat on a daily basis, many small businesses struggle to make heads or tails of Snapchat marketing and its casual, playful vibe.
Another reason is cost. Snapchat has often been out of reach for small business owners and marketers due to costs associated with re-cutting video to a vertical format. With smaller media budgets, and smaller production budgets, re-cutting video that’s specific to Snapchat can be a big blow to a small budget.
While vertical video format is a factor, there are other reasons for these incentives to begin popping up, including efforts by other social media platforms to get a bigger piece of the SMB advertising pie. In July, it was reported that Instagram was offering advertisers the opportunity to test new ad products for free. Facebook is also tremendous growth in its small business ad revenue.
Throw in investors that are disappointed in the sluggish revenue and user growth since Snapchat went public in March, and it’s easy to see why they’re aiming to pull small businesses into the advertising fold.
Time to Jump Into Snapchat Advertising?
While advertising on Snapchat may not be for everyone, if your business caters to teens and young adults, it’s definitely worth looking into. New marketing features, including Ad Manage, Snap Publisher, and Certified Partners, make it easier than ever for small businesses to get in the game, and puts them in a better position to compete with larger brands and businesses.
