Based on extensive research and my own experience of working with more than 250 businesses, here are 12 marketing challenges commonly experienced by small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs/SMBs).
Discover the most pressing marketing issues that are holding back small and medium-sized enterprises with some suggestions on how to address them effectively for sustainable growth.
These marketing pain points and some suggestions are ranked below in order of priority based on frequency of mention:
1. Limited Budget and Resources:
The top concern for small and medium sized businesses is often budget constraints. These restrict their ability to invest in marketing initiatives and explore new opportunities for growth.
With limited financial resources and a lack of strategic and digital marketing skills, businesses struggle to implement comprehensive marketing strategies and plans. (Source: Small Business Administration)
However, having a small marketing budget is still a budget and spent well based on a clear marketing strategy should deliver valuable returns. I often find that budgets are spent in the wrong areas of marketing and reallocating spend can significantly increase marketing ROI, often without increasing budgets.
2. Unhappy with Their Website and Its Effectiveness:
Many SMEs are unhappy with their websites and their web designers. This is a key reason why new clients first contact Real Marketing Transformation.
They may be unhappy about their website’s content, structure, search engine optimisation (SEO), design, functionality (technical glitches, slow loading times, and poor user experience), or poor conversion rates.
Slow or non-existent support from their web designers exacerbates the problem. (Source: BrightLocal’s Small Business Websites: The Data Behind Your Pain Points)
Having a professional website project manager, is a valuable way to ensure new websites become winning, high performance websites.
3. Not Enough Time Being Allocated to Marketing:
All SME owners and managers face time constraints, resulting in marketing activities being pushed to the bottom of their to-do list or neglected altogether.
Juggling multiple responsibilities, particularly operational demands, often leads to marketing initiatives slipping down their agenda, hindering the implementation of effective strategies and plans. (Source: Survey by The Manifest on Small Business Digital Marketing Priorities)
4. Social Media Overload and Ineffectiveness:
While social media marketing plays a key role in marketing for many small businesses (particularly in B2C markets), many struggle to manage multiple platforms effectively.
The key channels used by their customers should be their focus and often only using 2 or 3 channels well, works better than spreading efforts over too widely.
Their websites, which should be the hub of their marketing, can often be neglected due to excessive time spent in social media.
Businesses find it challenging to measure each social platform’s contribution to leads, sales and business growth. (Source: Buffer’s State of Social report)
5. Confusion and Lack of Clarity About Their Marketing Strategy:
Understanding the complexities of marketing poses a significant challenge for small businesses, leading to short term decisions, wasted budget and time, and uncertainty about where to focus their efforts.
Without a clear, written, long term marketing strategy and plan in place, businesses struggle to define objectives, target audiences, their brand values, pricing, market position, and the most effective channels to focus on. Despite this, more than 40% of small businesses do not have a written marketing strategy. The difference between strategy and tactics also causes confusion.
6. Generating Quality Leads and Conversions:
SMEs frequently encounter challenges in attracting and converting leads into customers. Identifying the best lead generation channels, nurturing prospects down the sales funnel, and achieving a good return on investment. These are common pain points which reduce sales growth and profits. (Source: HubSpot’s State of Inbound report)
I find that poor website conversion rates are a key challenge; conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is not given enough attention at many small businesses. Doubling website conversion rates is often relatively easy to achieve and costs little. See my 10 Tips for Improving Website Conversion Rates.
Sales conversion rates also need to be measured and improved over time.
7. Poor Communication and Trust in SEO Services:
Engaging SEO consultants often leaves SMEs feeling confused about the actions being implemented and the measurable results achieved. The lack of transparency in SEO reporting and communication leads to frustration and confusion about the effectiveness of search engine optimisation. (Source: Moz’s SEO Industry Report)
Many web designers also have a poor understanding of SEO and do not set up onsite SEO and technical SEO sufficiently well. SEO is a complex blend of art and science but this is not an excuse for weak reporting by SEO consultancies.
As I suggest to my clients, if your website cannot be found in relevant searches, your online shop front is lost somewhere in the hills rather than in a prime high street location!
8. Inconsistent Brand Messaging and Positioning:
Maintaining a cohesive brand identity across all marketing channels can prove challenging for some SMEs. Inconsistencies in messaging, branding, and positioning undermine brand building and confuse customers. (Source: Deloitte’s Global Marketing Trends report)
Many small businesses would benefit from having clearly written down brand values, based on customer feedback. During my marketing reviews, I always identify my clients’ brand values.
9. Intense Competition and Over-Crowded Markets:
SMEs operate in fiercely competitive markets, making it difficult to stand out and differentiate themselves. Identifying unique selling points, effectively communicating value propositions, and staying ahead of competitors are ongoing struggles for many businesses. (Source: McKinsey & Company’s Small Business Growth research)
Businesses should also have a clear sales pitch, one-liner, strapline and selling messages. This makes it easier for them to define and articulate their USP (what differentiates them), and helps them standout.
10. Keeping Up with New Technology:
Digital marketing is drowning in constantly changing technology. For example, this could relate to their website, design, analytics (eg GA4), social media, email marketing, CRM systems, video, AI, Google Ads, social media Ads or SEO.
Keeping pace with evolving software, new platforms and tools, and technological innovations requires continuous learning and evolution is a significant challenge. (Source: Gartner’s Marketing Technology Survey)
It often makes sense to avoid the attraction of shiny new products, and master a limited number of technical tools and seek outside support when needed.
11. Measuring Marketing ROI:
SMEs often struggle to accurately measure the return on investment (ROI) of their marketing efforts. Determining the effectiveness of their marketing channels and campaigns, as well as attributing sales and revenue to specific marketing activities often proves challenging. (Source: Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising report)
SMEs can use tools such as Google Analytics (GA4), marketing automation platforms, social media, management accounts, and CRM systems to measure key performance indicators (KPIs) or marketing metrics.
I tend to recommend that my clients should use a limited marketing dashboard of key marketing metrics which are measured quarterly. This helps ensure that reporting isn’t too complex or time-consuming and trends can be identified. The metrics must be clearly analysed, understood and turned into actions.
12. Content Creation and Distribution:
Creating high-quality, engaging content and distributing it effectively across channels is time-consuming and a real challenge for SMEs. Generating fresh ideas, maintaining consistent timing, and maximising engagement requires time, resources, and expertise that many businesses find overwhelming and distracting. (Source: Content Marketing Institute’s B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks report)
I tend to recommend that all content should be viewed as a media asset and repurposed and reused across as many channels as possible. Content marketing should also be integrated with PR for high returns.
AI can be used to save up to 80% of time when creating new content. However, in my opinion, to avoid being bland and boring, all AI generated content should be based on clear prompting and needs to be edited before publishing, aspects too often ignored by AI experts.
Don’t Get Overwhelmed by Marketing
These marketing pain points highlight the many challenges faced by SMEs in today’s competitive landscape. Addressing these challenges requires a strategic, planned approach to marketing, with investment in a clear budget, adequate time and resources, the right marketing skills and selective use of technology.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your marketing challenges, feel free to book an informal marketing chat with me via the link below.
Photo credit: thanks to Lily Battershill and my son, Hamish Lamotte (the climber) for the excellent photo from the Cuillins on Skye!
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