Four Challenges SMBs Face with Digital Marketing

By Haines|Published On: November 4, 2016|

When you’re a small business owner, it’s easy to feel as if the challenges you’re facing are unique. Sometimes you’re so immersed in your problems that you fail to realize that the issues you’re facing are the same ones your competition is facing.

Today, we want to share with you some of these universal challenges with digital marketing, because we believe that how you respond to them will play a big part in the success of your business.

There’s No Time for Digital Marketing

At least 40% of small businesses face the time challenge.

They just can’t find enough time to complete whatever they are doing. In most cases, this usually results from wearing too many hats, and can cause fatigue and pressure. Fatigue, in turn, often leads to disorganization, forgetfulness, not paying attention to customer needs, and making unnecessary mistakes.

In adverse cases, the weariness has even caused a few owners to completely abandon their businesses.

So, business owners must pace themselves. You need to find a pace that keeps the business humming without grinding you down.

Not Enough Knowledge Of Digital Marketing

One reason small business owners usually end up with fatigue is taking on jobs that require skill sets that the owner doesn’t possess.

For instance, as a small business owner, you might be forced to be your own accountant, marketer, and even legal expert.

As an accountant, you’ll be keeping books and maintaining the payroll of your employees. As a marketer, you may have to design promotions and plan for campaigns to bring in new leads. And, as your own legal expert, you’ll be tasked with ensuring that your engagements remain within the law at all times.

Wearing these extra hats can be draining and has been reported as a challenge by 37% of SMBs.

What experts advise in such circumstances is to find other skilled people to help you with those special responsibilities.

Find an accountant to keep your books, a specialist marketer to handle your marketing, a lawyer to handle the legal matters, and so on. You’ll have more time to focus on the business, suffer fewer headaches, and the specialists will do a professional job which can only be good for your business.

Your Ad Budget Isn’t Big Enough for Digital

This third point is a big issue. Budgeting in general is a sore spot for business owners. For 33% of small businesses the two main hurdles to success are cash flow management and growing business revenue.

The main goal of any business is to make a profit. Without profits, the business would crumble. To make profits, you need customers and to get those customers, you need to advertise your business.

But how much do you spend on advertisement without offsetting the gains?

This problem is usually complicated by the fact that measuring the return on investment (ROI) of some advertisement channels is very difficult. Again, don’t hesitate to find a marketing expert to help with this.

Not Enough Resources to Hire Dedicated Personnel

Finally, 21% of small business owners have also reported inadequate resources as a major challenge as it makes it impossible for them to hire and retain the best talent.

According to one estimate, the total cost of hiring a new employee – taxes, benefits, training, bonuses, and equipment included – can range from 1.5 times to 3 times the salary of the position.

This can be a big investment for cash strapped SMBs.

Unfortunately, it rarely ends there, considering that small businesses also have to keep up to date with technological advancements, motivate employees, and provide various employment benefits. Put together, these challenges can be overwhelming.