5 Biggest Small Business Marketing Challenges (and How To Overcome Them)
As you work on your business plan and get ready to start a business, you’re justifiably optimistic. You think you have a great business idea, and you hope to build a successful and sustainable business.
Your small business may have a terrific product or service. But that still may not be enough to keep your business alive.
In fact, 50% of small businesses fold by their fifth year.
That’s a sobering statistic.
But you don’t have to leave the success or failure of your business to chance.
Successful marketing can mean the difference between calling it quits and celebrating your business’s next anniversary.
Marketing is the heart of your business.
You need to effectively market your products or services so that potential customers actually know about them.
But, sometimes, that’s easier said than done – especially for small businesses.
A small business is defined as one with fewer than 100 employees (although most small businesses are under 10 employees).
Small businesses are often short on time, money, and other resources.
That creates a dilemma. If you want your business to succeed, you need to market it. But marketing requires time, money, and resources.
You may need to get smart about how you market effectively, given the common limitations experienced by nearly all small businesses.
The good news is that you don’t have to do this alone. As always, we’re here for you.
Here are the 5 biggest marketing challenges small businesses face and our top tips for overcoming them.
Challenge #1: Lack of leads
Leads are vital to any business.
And it’s easy to see why.
Without leads, you have no customers.
Without customers… you have no business. Not for long, anyway.
Even when leveraging a web scraper to harvest leads from various websites or successfully amassing a substantial lead base through other means, the continuous acquisition of new leads remains vital for your business’s growth. After all, a thriving business is never content with ‘getting by’; it always seeks to expand and flourish.
If your business struggles to find leads, know you’re not alone. According to survey data from the small business network Alignable, a shortage of leads is the biggest marketing challenge for small businesses.
How to fight back
Lead generation is the name of the game. But, before generating leads, you need to know what a lead is.
Hubspot defines a lead as “a person who has indicated interest in your company’s product or service in some way, shape, or form.”
If you want to capture someone’s interest, the most important step is understanding who you’re trying to attract. This will allow you to craft messages that will resonate with that audience.
Any fisherman can tell you that choosing the right bait is critical. This is how leads are generated.
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So, start by really considering who your brand’s audience is. The more specific about this you are, the better. Targeting “women aged 30 – 55” is a good start. But targeting “affluent unmarried female skiing enthusiasts aged 30-55” is even better.
The more specific the audience you target, the more you can tailor your message to that audience. And the more compelling your message will be.
When it comes to lead generation, don’t try to be everything to everyone. A watered-down, one-size-fits-all message will never capture anyone’s interest – let alone leads.
Let me illustrate with an example.
Over the past decade, crowdspring has helped tens of thousands of small business owners, entrepreneurs, agencies, and non-profits in the US and from 100 countries with professional logo design, website design, print design, product design, packaging design, and even naming businesses and products.
Not all of our clients or services are alike, and a watered-down generic message would make it very tough to speak with each client segment.
Although some of our marketing pages are common across customer segments, we regularly create dedicated landing pages. For example, our logo design landing page differs from our landing page for people looking to name a new business or company. We show different examples, have different content, and answer different questions.
Are you doing something similar in your business? If you’re not, you should.
A parting thought on lead generation… marketing coach Ahmad Munawar recommends:
…next time you want to try something — ask yourself a simple question — is this going to generate leads?
If the answer is no and you’re one of the 77% who needs more leads, don’t do it. Because you don’t have the time or money to try things that aren’t going to generate leads.
Challenge #2: Poor visibility
Poor visibility is undoubtedly one of the reasons why small businesses struggle to generate leads.
In a noisy marketplace full of competitors – large and small – it’s easy for your brand’s voice to be lost.
If you’re a small business, that’s especially true. It’s unlikely you’ve got the budget for nationally syndicated ads or a commercial during the Super Bowl.
And, if prospective customers can’t find your business, there’s a good chance they’ll never become actual customers.
So, let’s look at what you can do to improve your visibility.
How to fight back
Without the financial resources to compete for wide visibility, targeting the right audience in the right places becomes even more important.
Ask yourself:
- Does your small business have the online marketing presence it should have?
- Do you have a website, social media accounts, and positive online reviews?
- And, is your brand on the physical marketing platforms where your target audience is looking?
If you answered “no” to any of these questions, it’s time to get to work.
Most modern consumers first turn to the internet for a new product or service. Start by improving your marketing presence online to make the biggest impact.
For more on this, read Grow Your Small Business With These 7 Website Design Best Practices and 13 Proven Ways To Optimize Small Business Website Conversions.
And, if you really want to improve your visibility online, target SEO.
SEO (search engine optimization) is the practice of building web pages that are clearly visible to search engines.
Search engines used complex algorithms to determine what web pages appear when a user types in a search query. The more closely your website matches that query, the more likely it will appear in the valuable real estate on the first page of search results.
Ultimately, if you’re not sure what makes your business unique or who will want to buy your product, you’re going to stay invisible. Once you know who your audience is, you can make strategic efforts to place your brand in the specific places that will be most visible to them.
You don’t have to be everywhere. You have to be where your audience can see you.
Challenge #3: Lack of marketing knowledge
Entrepreneurs are jacks of all trades by default.
Truth be told, they usually have no choice.
When you start or run a small business, many responsibilities fall to the person in charge.
But just because a job fell into your lap doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing. This is why entrepreneurs – successful entrepreneurs, anyway – learn on the fly.
If you aren’t a marketer by trade but you need to make integral marketing decisions, it’s easy to be paralyzed into inaction if you don’t know what to do. But don’t let fear hold your business back.
How to fight back
While you must be brave enough to jump into unknown marketing waters, please don’t do it blindly. Targeting the wrong tasks is easy if you don’t know what to do.
So, take the time to educate yourself. Here are a few places to start:
- Neil Patel is a fantastic online marketing expert. Check out what he has to say here.
- Entrepreneur and marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog is another great resource for marketing wisdom.
- Tim Ferriss, the author of the best-seller The 4-Hour Work Week, has a blog and podcast, too.
- The crowdspring blog is one of the top 50 business marketing blogs globally, and we regularly publish actionable content about small business marketing.
You’ll also want to create a marketing plan. That will help to ensure you’re staying on track.
Hubspot also offers a handy free tool that’s worth checking out – How to Create An Annual Marketing Plan.
The bottom line is your world is full of resources that can help you educate yourself and get your marketing on track. Take advantage of these resources.
Challenge #4: Lack of time
Many small businesses have an all-hands-on-deck approach.
There’s a good chance that you and your employees all probably share many roles to get everything done.
With so much to be done and a limited number of people to do it, it’s easy to see how marketing could get overlooked if you don’t have a dedicated marketer on your team, especially since marketing can be such an intangible.
And, as we’ve already mentioned, tasks that don’t fall under someone else’s job description tend to wind up on the small business owner’s already overflowing to-do list.
But the truth is that if you’re too busy hustling for business to market your business properly, it’s probably because you’ve failed to market your business.
Marketing helps to grow your business in an intentional, meaningful way. You have to make time for it.
How to fight back
It’s easy to say that marketing is important.
And it’s easy to say you must “make time.” But how does one actually do that?
The easiest ways to reclaim time for marketing are by delegating and automating.
Delegate
As a costume designer, I got a crash course in delegating. There are certain tasks that only the designer can do. Everything else has to be assigned to other people.
Why?
So that I could be free to do the tasks my team was relying on me to do.
If I failed to hold fittings on time, make design choices, or prioritize tasks, the rest of my team couldn’t do their part.
The same is true for an entrepreneur.
If you hold onto every task on your to-do list, you’re doing your business a disservice. Certain areas are your forte. There are certain tasks that only you can do. That’s where your focus should be.
Take the time to examine your current workload. What tasks are essential for you? What can you delegate?
If you have a flair for marketing, delegate other tasks to your employees to free up your time for more marketing.
If marketing is not your strong suit, delegate those tasks to someone better equipped for the job.
Automate
Sales and marketing automation can take some time-consuming marketing elements off your plate.
The experts at CMK Marketing explain:
Marketing automation is the process of using software and technology to optimize, automate and measure repetitive online marketing tasks. Once you find yourself doing the same task, over and over again, you can almost be sure that there is a way to automate it.
Automating certain elements can make your marketing more efficient (and your life a little easier).
One of these elements is the coveted lead generation! Imagine a world where you can passively acquire new leads with little-to-no effort!
If you’re intrigued and you’d like to learn how you might be able to incorporate marketing automation into your small business, check out this article.
Challenge #5: Lack of budget
Small businesses often struggle with cash flow.
In fact, a shortage of cash and cash flow issues are two of the top five reasons small businesses fail, according to this infographic.
And, when there are so many places where your money is needed, it may seem hard to justify spending a great deal on your marketing.
Even if you don’t have money to devote to a big marketing campaign, that’s okay. Effective marketing doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
How to fight back
If you’re low on funds, focus your marketing efforts on the most cost-effective options available.
The good news is that there are many financially lean marketing techniques to choose from.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is the most cost-effective marketing platform.
Establishing a personable social media presence is particularly effective for small businesses. It’s much easier for customers to relate to smaller businesses. For this reason, small businesses can successfully create a sense of intimacy and trust with their audience.
Lean into this small business strength by creating genuine social interactions with your followers on Facebook and Twitter. And, check out this article to learn more about how to get the most from your social media marketing.
Content marketing
Another cost-effective option is content marketing. Starting a blog doesn’t have to cost a lot. And the value you produce through quality content will appeal to your customers and prospective customers.
In fact, you may be able to combine social media and content marketing by leveraging your social media followers into blog subscribers.
Connecting with potential customers on multiple platforms strengthens your relationship, making it more likely that they will turn to your business when they need a product or service like yours.
The Content Marketing Institute is a great resource for mastering content marketing.
We also recommend you read Supercharge Your Small Business Marketing: How To Market To the Social Media Generation and 11 Essential Content Marketing Tools That Will Help Your Business.
Influencer marketing
You may also want to explore influencer marketing. Developing a relationship with an influencer who resonates with your target customers can really expand your reach.
Many influencers embrace and endorse useful products or services to their fan base free of charge – as long as the product or service has a real benefit for their followers. This can evolve into great profits and growth for your business.
Just be careful to select an influencer with the right audience.
Stop by the Influencer Marketing Hub to learn more.
We recommend reading 21 Ways To Market Your Small Business On a Shoestring Budget.
Cast your net
If you want to give your small business its best chance for success, embrace marketing.
Small businesses do face unique marketing challenges. But knowing you may face challenges does not give you a free pass.
It’s time to ask yourself what is holding your marketing back. There are paths forward, including lack of leads, knowledge, time, visibility, or money.
So, don’t let those challenges hold you back.
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