Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada First to Bounce Back in the Post-Lehman Economy
Santa Monica, California (PRWEB) October 17, 2013 -- CallFire, the cloud-based text and voice platform that enables businesses to easily reach customers directly, today released The State of Small Business Post-Lehman Report, an analysis of which U.S. states have made the biggest strides since the financial meltdown. The study looks at the purchase of small business phone numbers for trackable marketing campaigns used over a variety of ad mediums -- billboards, online ads, newspapers and more – illuminating the extent of marketing and sales activity by region.
And where did the states fall? According to the data:
• The states making the biggest comeback include Arizona, New Jersey, California, Washington and Nevada.
• North Dakota, West Virginia, South Dakota, Iowa and Mississippi were the five coldest states, falling to the bottom of the rankings.
“Local phone number purchases serve as a proxy for small business economic activity, making it easy for us to tell which states are truly bouncing back,” said Dinesh Ravishanker, CallFire CEO. “Small businesses typically purchase phone numbers to track marketing spending and our data shows which states are aiming for high-growth, not maintenance of the status quo, one of the primary stats also tracked by the NFIB.”
CallFire mined local phone number data in the continental United States based on the billions of phone calls it processed, primarily serving small businesses, from September 2008 through December 2012 (see full methodology below).
Boom vs. Bust: How and Why the States Stack Up
• The states hardest hit by the housing bubble are also among the strongest performers in the analysis: Arizona, Nevada, Florida and California -- all of which experienced a sharp rebound.
• North Dakota has experienced huge economic growth during this period, but came up dead last according to the CallFire data.
o Why? Virtually all of the state’s recent growth has been fueled by the shale oil and gas boom. While big firms are moving to North Dakota to build the support infrastructure, small businesses are not participating in nearly the same way.
• The same applies to the economic boom in West Virginia, which has been driven almost exclusively by the mining industry and has yet to have a ripple effect on the broader economy in the state. To a lesser extent, this also explains Texas’ relative underperformance, despite the oil boom.
• Washington State was a strong performer in both CallFire’s analysis and national GDP data. Much of the growth in that state is connected to “information services” – that is, to technology-focused companies that are more likely to purchase phone numbers.
• Michigan outperforms other states in national GDP data, but lags slightly in the state of small business data. Michigan’s growth has largely been driven by the auto industry’s emergence from bankruptcy. Only now are stories about small business/entrepreneurship taking root in cities like Detroit.
Methodology
CallFire analyzed local phone numbers purchased in the contiguous United States from 9/15/2008 through 12/31/2012. Data was normalized by adjusting for the number of small and midsize businesses in each state per the 2008 census, removing Hawaii and Alaska, and eliminating toll-free numbers.
About CallFire
CallFire is a Text and Voice platform that helps businesses reach customers, drive revenue and increase sales. We make telephone messaging simple. CallFire products include Business Text Messaging, Voice Broadcast, Toll Free Numbers, Local Phone Numbers, Call Tracking, IVR, Power Dialing for agents and more. Call analytics enable our 200,000 users to reach customers more often using text marketing, virtual numbers, autodialers and mobile messaging. To learn more about how to grow your business, visit http://www.CallFire.com.
Sean Gera, CallFire, Inc., http://callfire.com, +1 (213) 221-2209, [email protected]
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