According to a new study, while only 37% of small businesses said they saw an increase in sales in the last 12 months, 57% expect sales to be up in the next 12 months. The optimism is partly due to new marketing strategies and tactics with 45% saying they plan to implement these strategies in the next 12 months.

Marketing and advertising was the most popular growth strategy in the study. When we look at the same study from year-end 2014, we see that optimism was much higher with 72% saying they were somewhat or very confident in the financial future of their businesses and 51% said marketing was an important growth strategy.

This 2016 study also found that e-commerce was the third most selected growth strategy in the study at 28%. This is down from 35% six months ago. Overall it appears that despite a decrease in revenue optimism among SMBs since 2014, they remain focused on growing with the aid of marketing and technology.