Business marketing is no easy task. You are spending time and money trying to get the attention of your target audience. The problem is that you are competing for that attention with many other businesses. Add in the famously short attention spans of modern consumers, and you can begin to see the challenges of effective business marketing.
Don't despair, though. Effective business marketing isn't Mission:Impossible. With a little help and the right approach, you can overcome many of these challenges and enjoy a more successful marketing campaign. Let's look at some of the biggest business marketing challenges and how to overcome them.
Business Marketing Challenge 1: Budget
In one study a couple of years ago, more than a quarter of businesses reported securing enough budget as one of their biggest business marketing challenges. This challenge is particularly acute for small businesses, who often operate under tight financial constraints. When big businesses can afford commercial spots and a barrage of advertisements, how can your business ever catch the fleeting attention of potential customers?
Solution: Adopt digital marketing.
Even the “free” digital marketing strategies (like social media marketing) are not entirely free. However, they are very low-cost, high impact solutions. For example, Google AdWords has a higher click through rate than banner advertising, but allows you to set your own budget. Social media is free to set up and gives you access to entire networks of your target audience. Even small budgets stretch when used in digital marketing.
Business Marketing Challenge 2: Lead Generation
In that same study, the biggest business marketing challenge by far was lead generation. Businesses simply were not generating enough leads from their marketing efforts.
For small businesses, investing limited resources into business marketing and not getting leads in return can spell disaster. You need to see a strong return on your business marketing investment. Otherwise, your marketing budget is wasted and your business continues to limp along (at best) or face closure (at worst).
Solution: Invest in high-impact business marketing strategies.
The average click through rate of all banner advertising is only .05 percent. The average click through rate of Google Ads is 3.17 percent for search and .46 percent for display. Go with Google Ads instead of other types of banner ads in order to enjoy the most impact from your marketing efforts.
A digital marketing company can help you further identify these high-impact advertising opportunities. Once you implement those strategies, you should enjoy more engagement without spending more budget.
Business Marketing Challenge 3: Differentiation
Business marketing is all about getting your target audience to pay attention to you instead of to your competitors. In order to get that attention, though, you have to be different from your competitors. You have to stand out from the crowd.
Achieving this differentiation in your business marketing can be a challenge. You have to first understand what makes your brand different, then understand how that difference is a good thing for your customers, then communicate that difference in your business marketing. Many companies fail at this task. They end up looking and acting just like everyone else, and potential customers just pass them by.
Solution: Deliver solutions for target customers.
Your target customers will have specific needs and pain points. Use your business marketing to deliver solutions for these needs. For example, promote your same-day estimates for plumbing work; emphasize the family-owned nature of your plumbing business, or discuss certifications you possess that your competition does not. When people see that you can meet their needs, you will stand out in their minds.
Business Marketing Challenge 4: Lack of Time
As a business owner, you undoubtedly wear a lot of different hats. As a result, you may struggle to make time for marketing. Business marketing will always require an investment of time. Identifying target audiences, developing and implementing strategies, monitoring progress, testing ads, responding to problems, and more, can easily eat up time. Unless you have that time to put in, your business marketing efforts may fail.
Solution: Hire help.
The best way to deal with a lack of time to do business marketing is to hire someone who can help. In particular, consider a digital marketing agency like Distinct Web Design. We can assist you across every aspect of your business marketing, from identifying audiences to implementing campaigns to redesigning your website to tracking your campaign's success. Because we work with small businesses, we can do all of that for affordable rates that will not break the bank.
Business marketing can be a challenge. It doesn't have to be an impossible one, though. Digital marketing offers realistic solutions for almost all of these challenges. Whether you struggle to generate leads or simply can't find the time to invest in business marketing, digital marketing can help. And so can Distinct Web Design. With expertise, affordability, and experience, we can help you at every stage to overcome the challenges you face and begin earning the leads and conversions your business needs.
