Now available, the report aggregates responses from small businesses and nonprofits in many sectors including women owned, minority owned, and socially responsible. A joint research project by Message Medium and Ventureneer, the Ditch Digital Dabbling survey outlines the online marketing tactics that work best and highlights new revelations, including the fact that "power users" rate only five social-media tools as very effective.

"While many small businesses and nonprofits market online, very few have a firm grasp of the strategies, tactics, and tools to do it well in spite of the overload of how-to information", explains Message Medium president Maisha Walker. "Rather than adding to the noise, we wanted to share real-world insights and success stories gleaned from their peers who were facing similar challenges."

By showing which online marketing and social-media strategies have and haven't worked, the survey results act as a research-driven roadmap to saving small businesses time and money when putting together their own marketing plans.

"The survey confirms that you can't get the best results from online marketing programs unless you know how to effectively measure whether you're achieving your goals or not", comments Ventureneer president Geri Stengel. "While we found that a majority of companies attempt to measure performance, they don't understand what actually works. The concept of trying, measuring, and tweaking -- almost in real time -- is new, but it's as critical to effectiveness as is time spent."