Running a business isn't easy. Trust me, we get it.
As a business owner, you have to deal with a variety of unique challenges every day, while trying to make an impact on consumers in a competitive market. You're putting in the time, effort, and money to help your brand become more visible to your audience.
We believe that marketing is the heart of any business. The benefits of digital marketing for small businesses are unmatched, and if you figure out how to get this right, your business is bound to thrive.
Whether you've hit a roadblock in your marketing plan, or you're looking for ways to fix some of the digital marketing problems you're facing, we're here to help you navigate through those issues.
After years of working with different clients and understanding their marketing needs, we've come to notice some common marketing problems that businesses like you face.
Today, we’re going to help you overcome those problems. Here are 5 common business marketing challenges most companies face.
Not having a clear marketing strategy
1 in 5 small businesses don’t utilize digital marketing at all, and a majority of those who do, don’t have a clear marketing strategy in place.
Over the years, many of our clients have come to us with an unclear marketing strategy. They either pivoted too quickly or they didn’t measure their results to see what was working and what needed more attention. Frequently changing directions in a marketing strategy can often impair reporting. Without accurate metrics and numbers, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.
If you think you’ve fallen victim to that, or don’t know if you have the right strategy in place, we’re here to help provide you with some direction.
Solution: The first step is to make sure you have your marketing foundations in place.
- Set up Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google My Business. Once you understand your numbers, you will be able to better gauge your goals and metrics.
- Research your market, analyze your competitors, define your target customer, and identify your goals.
Once you’ve got those basics in place, you will be better equipped to create a marketing strategy for your business.
Whether you have a solid plan you want help implementing or you have no idea how to create a strategy and need some guidance, we’re here to help you and meet you where you’re at.
Let us do a quick audit of your business, for free. Reach out to us, and someone from our dedicated team will get in touch soon.
Not keeping up with trends and best practices in the industry
The digital marketing landscape is constantly changing, so keeping up with new trends and best practices is important for your business. For instance, last year more than half of annual online website traffic came from mobile devices. So now, mobile optimizations are becoming increasingly essential for businesses. How would you find out about this change if you’re not keeping up with trends?
Solution: As a business owner, it is important to add marketing news and updates into your everyday reading.
- Start by subscribing to newsletters from industry thought leaders, and frequent major websites in the digital realm. tl;dr Marketing and Google Ads Announcements are a good place to start.
- Use your digital marketing agency’s resources to understand the landscape better.
At Digital Hot Sauce, it is our job to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing. We know the best practices and continually changing standards you need to meet in order to successfully launch your digital marketing campaigns.
Not knowing your buyer persona
One of the main steps in creating a digital marketing strategy is understanding who your target audience is and creating a buyer persona. If you get this wrong and target the wrong audience, your entire marketing strategy becomes ineffective, and you waste time and money on the wrong marketing tactics. So, take a step back and develop your buyer persona.
In simplest terms, a ‘buyer persona’ is a detailed description of someone who represents your target audience. If you figure out what makes that audience tick, you’re well on your way to creating the perfect buyer persona for your business.
Solution: Answer these questions when creating your buyer persona:
- What are the demographics of your audience? For example, age, gender, location, job, income level, family make up, etc.
- Why would they be interested in your product or service?
- What are their pain points? What do they gain by using your product or service?
- Where do they spend their time online? Which sources do they trust? Who influences their decisions?
Once you’ve identified who your perfect customer is, use that information to help inform your marketing strategy. We’re happy to walk you through this. Let’s work together to help you come up with the right buyer persona for your business.
Contact us, and one of our team members will be happy to have a chat with you and set up a free consultation.
Not creating quality content with good SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization. At its core, it’s all about creating content that is optimized for search engines like Google or Bing to help you show up in search results.
Churning out lots of content isn’t the key to getting more traffic and visibility. You need to create valuable, quality content. By using the right keywords, and understanding search engine ranking factors better, you will be able to reach a wider audience. SEO mistakes in digital content production can hamper your reach.
SEO-friendly content increases the likelihood of your brand showing up on the first page of search results. When done strategically, it can garner great returns. Use blog posts, newsletters, infographics, and videos to effectively market and repurpose your content.
Solution:
- Update and repurpose old content to make it more relevant and informative for your audience.
- Optimize your blog posts and website to make sure it is SEO-friendly. You can do so by researching the search intent for keywords that relate to your business. Utilize those keywords in your content to make it more visible on search engines.
- Increase traffic to and ranking for your website by using internal links. Linking to similar content within your website gives your audience a chance to explore your products and services and also helps search engines understand which parts of your website are most important.
At Digital Hot Sauce, we can create a content strategy for you that matches your brand’s voice and goals. Check out our services and give us a call if you think we can help.
Not knowing how to set up PPC campaigns properly
PPC, or pay-per-click, is a form of marketing where the business pays a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Based on what the user searches for, your business will pop up at the top of search engine results as a sponsored link.
PPC advertising for small businesses is a great way to get more eyeballs on your company and reach the target customers most likely to convert. When PPC is working correctly, the fee is trivial, because the visit is worth more than what you pay for it. On the other hand, if done incorrectly, you can end up spending a lot of money with no returns. For instance, if it costs $2 for a click and your website conversion rate is 4%, this means you will need 25 clicks in order to generate a sale. If you’re spending $50 to generate a sale that’s worth $200, then your Return on Ad Spend is 4:1, which is good.
Solution: If you’re sold on the idea of a PPC campaign, here’s how you can set it up correctly.
--> Research the right keywords to use with Google’s Keyword Planner
--> Organize the selected keywords into ad groups based on similar topics or niches
--> Write ad copy tailored to each of those topics
--> Create landing pages optimized for conversions
If you create ads and landing pages that are optimized for your audience, you will pay less per click and conversion, which will lead to higher profits for your business.
We understand there’s a lot that goes into creating and implementing the right PPC campaign for your business. If you’re unsure how to start or have questions you’d like answered, don’t hesitate to contact us.
At Digital Hot Sauce, nothing makes us happier than helping small businesses like you see your marketing potential and use it to grow.
Together, we can come up with the right marketing plan to take your business to the next level.
