Forrester Research recently conducted a study on behalf of Act-On, a cloud-based marketing software firm, to examine the habits of successful small business marketers in a tough economy. 

Researchers found there were 7 key factors that differentiated small businesses that outperformed others in a tough economic environment; those include:

1. An emphasis on online over offline marketing strategies;

2. A focus on new business leads and customer lifetime value over customer acquisition cost savings;

3. The execution of highly-optimized, multi-channel campaigns leveraging email, web and social media;

4. Nurturing leads carefully until the time is right rather than trying to sell from the get-go;

5. Collecting the metrics that matter and measuring results in order to iterate and improve;

6. Increasing collaboration between sales and marketing, made easier through quantifiable measures of success;

7. Maintaining -- or even increasing -- marketing budgets during a difficult economy in order to increase business momentum, seize new opportunities, and gain the competitive advantage.

The Act-On white paper based on this research can be found at www.act-on.com/drive.