I’m wearing my Superman t-shirt today because all my summer clothes are in lost luggage somewhere between Jamaica and Toronto – yes, we brought freezing weather to the Caribbean last week. But I came home to really nice news: 68% of small business CEOs are increasing their marketing spend this year despite doubts, uncertainties, and volatility. Email marketing giant Constant Contact surveyed 1,500 small business CEOs across North America, Australia, and New Zealand for their Q1 2026 status report. They’re not cutting spend despite increased costs, budgets, and pricing uncertainty – in fact, they’re increasing spend. And 74% (three-quarters) will spend more time on messaging, doubling down on AI to help them message and target better using analytics. There’s a huge mindset shift happening: marketing spend has moved from being viewed as discretionary to essential – it’s do-or-die survival now. The climate has shifted from hesitant to aggressive, and I’m seeing this with several of my clients as well.

The Top Three Worries Keeping CEOs Up at Night

The biggest worry (41%) is inflation, uncertain pricing, tariffs, and supply issues. The cost of doing new business is so expensive now that the rest of the business can’t keep up with the cost of it. Their second biggest worry is weak customer demand – CEOs are worried they’ll put out all this extra marketing, spend their brains out, raise prices, and there won’t be enough takers or buyers. Almost half (45%) say their biggest common complaint is customer attention and engagement – not just doing outreach, but getting customers interested in engaging and granting meetings. This is the bulk of my work with clients at The Repositioning Expert: figuring out ways to do outreach that engages and retains that attention. Customer attention is the new black.

AI Adoption and Channel Priorities

Half of small businesses (54%) already use AI for content. How you use it matters – you could use it at a base level as another Google search engine, or analytically (hopefully you’re starting to), or integrate operations and strategic decision-making. A lot has been said about AI slop and not getting returns (I’ve covered this in Tuesday Tea Time topics), but AI is here to stay. Remember my AI clone? That’s content, but I haven’t continued because the quality isn’t good enough and I won’t spend time figuring out how to replace the authenticity of what I feel, who I am, my personality, and my quirks. But for those who’ve mastered it or want to, many are already using it for content. The survey looked at where marketing spend is going – there’s no change in channels. Social media is still king with 65% of spend, email gets 41%, traditional advertising (Super Bowl ads, newspapers) follows, then in-person at 29%. That’s events, where I want my clients to be, because if you don’t have funnels, systems, teams, and budgets to compete on social media, email, and traditional advertising, be in-person. When you’re a small company like mine, interpersonal connections make a huge difference, and increasingly personal connections become even more important in the age of AI.

You Can’t Afford to Sleep on Marketing

The lessons from this survey: as a small business owner, you can no longer afford to sleep on marketing, skimp on it, or cut it because your competitors aren’t doing that. Where you don’t want to cut is your share of voice among competitors and in the market. Look at how you can do more with the marketing mix that already works for you – what’s actually converted, what’s had ROI, and how can you double down on it. Then think about how you can excel on that using AI with your messaging and targeting. Those are the things you can learn from the Constant Contact survey about the temperature of the room with respect to marketing.

Want to reposition your messaging to grow your leads? Follow me on X, friend me on Facebook, watch my Podcast onYouTube or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk.