A Quick Roadmap to Overcome Marketing Challenges

Editorial Staff

September 28, 2022

Starting a new business is exciting for an entrepreneur. But when the rubber meets the road, it can either turn into absolute suffering or exponential growth.

It depends on how you deal with the many challenges, one of which is marketing. Entrepreneurs are already dealing with uncertainty, competition, and cash crunch.

For a business to succeed, all the arms, including finance, procurement, sales, product or service development, and customer care, need to work efficiently. It is no secret that only a handful of startups go on to be unicorns.

Studies show that 20% of businesses fail in the first year, 30% in the second year, and 50% by the fifth year. 70% of small companies never make it past the tenth year.

In this blog, we will discuss the marketing challenges that small and medium businesses (SMBs) face and ways to overcome them.

Marketing Challenges SMBs Face: Solutions That’ll Help

#1. Real-Time Data Visibility

Customers do not want generic emails. They prefer customized content that adds value to their needs.

Most businesses do not have real-time visibility and send mass marketing communication resulting in the customer unsubscribing from the list or marking them as spam.

As a small business grows, it is impossible to speak to every customer and understand their needs personally. Businesses need a way to achieve 1:1 engagement and get instant visibility of their customers’ wants and needs.

This is possible by understating the customer preferences, purchase history, location, prior interactions, and the buying stage.

Customer relationship management platforms unify all the data for a customer into a single dashboard. They offer cross-channel insights that help marketing teams modify their campaigns quickly.

#2. Cross-Functional Synchronization

From being a new lead to the sale, a customer goes through various touchpoints. In most small and medium businesses, these processes run in silos and provide no insights for the marketing team.

As a result, the marketing budget may go into activities that have zero impact on business growth. For effective marketing, the data lying in sales and service systems need to come together to form a cohesive customer journey.

All the data on local or cloud servers need to unify for cross-team collaboration and role-based access.

#3. Data Analytics Upskilling

Marketing teams need adequate data to make a tangible impact on the overall ROI. This data will help them make informed decisions and design effective strategies.

Along with the up-skilling of the team, companies need to invest in AI-based data analytics and visualization that will help the team interpret the data correctly and leverage the right opportunities for better performance.

The marketing team can try innovative campaigns, identify the most effective channels, and analyze the sentiment of the customer.

#4. Collaboration Challenges

The pandemic has changed the way teams collaborate. Physical offices are empty, and teams are working remotely. Remote work remains one of the top priorities of business owners.

If executed right, it reduces the capital cost of the business significantly. But marketing is a creative field that requires constant collaboration and brainstorming of ideas.

The marketing teams cannot afford to work in silos. Collaboration between remote teams requires platforms to digitize workflows.

As the world opens up, hybrid work culture is becoming the norm. Standalone emails, project and content management systems, and messaging systems will not work.

SMBs need cloud-based systems with secure real-time communication capabilities that their teams can use from anywhere across the globe.

#5. Use of Marketing Tools & Technologies

Legacy marketing tactics will no longer work. They will even drive existing customers away to other brands. Innovative SMBs need to revolutionize their product, price, promotion, and place strategies.

This requires quick and easy access to data, metrics, and insights that will help them trace all activities from pre-sales to post-sales. End-to-end visibility will encourage relevant interactions and personalization on a large scale.

The marketing tools and technologies for SMBs should unify all customers’ data, gather market intelligence, use AI-based analytics, offer intuitive dashboards, and be on the cloud and mobile.

Final Words:

Pivoting to the changing demand is one of the keys to long-term business growth. Businesses that refuse to evolve eventually fade or struggle to make ends meet.

A cloud-based CRM system specially designed for SMBs will help them overcome all the challenges in marketing and stride with the new normal.