Earlier today we issued a press release announcing the results of a recent study we did of 1,000 small business owners in North America.

We wanted to get inside the minds of small business owners to see what they were thinking and what some of their focus areas were for 2012.

Prior to diving into the numbers, we are happy to report that the general sentiment from small business owners is that they are optimistic about the year ahead. This is good news and hopefully a strong indicator that the economy is bouncing back to it’s former glory with increased spending, lower unemployment, etc, etc. The sentiment a few years ago was fairly negative, so we’re glad (along with everyone else) to see the tides turning.

As long as the Mayan calendar isn’t right, 2012 will hopefully be a good year for the North American and global economy!

You can read the full press release here: Email Marketing and Social Marketing Are Key Focus Areas for Small Businesses in 2012

Here are some of the key highlights:

• 63% of small businesses plan on increasing their email marketing budget in 2012
• 58% of small businesses plan on increasing their social media budget in 2012
• 86% of respondents reported that the ROI from email marketing activities in 2011 “exceeded expectations”
• 60% of respondents reported that their content strategy on social networks is often driven by the content of their email marketing campaigns.

We also investigated the reasons small businesses decided to adopt email marketing into their marketing mix. In order to qualify as a “recent adopter” the businesses must have started email marketing within the last 3 months. Here are the highlights from that perspective:

• 81% of small businesses cited the cost benefit over printed flyers as a key reason to shift dollars away from print and towards email
• 29% cited the environmental benefit and wanting to present their organization as more “eco-friendly”
• 34% cited the reports & analytics available with email marketing (and the benefit that provides to their ROI) as a reason for switching to email

When asked about the top priority for 2012, the majority of small business owners said their goal was to grow their opt-in mailing list database and increase the numbers of likes/followers on social networks. This way when they broadcast a message, it reaches a larger audience.