Top 5 Marketing Challenges and Solutions

As a business owner, your digital marketing strategy could make or break your brand. In fact, 5-10% of your marketing budget should go to promoting your business on the web. Not only will effectively promoting your brand on the web make it easier to attract new customers, but it will also improve brand loyalty.

These short and long-term marketing efforts should include a plan for effective email marketing, web design, content marketing, understanding the customer journey, utilizing numerous marketing channels, creating content for social media, and more. Unfortunately, many small business owners make mistakes when they're promoting their products and/or services online.

Luckily, you don't have to do it all yourself. An experienced small business marketing agency like E-Marketing Associates can help you grow your business, which reduces your stress so you can stay healthy while running a business.

Also, this guide lays out some of the most common digital marketing challenges and solutions, which can help you to come up with some ideas on your own. Here are five of the most common mistakes that business owners make when they're advertising online and how to avoid them:

1. Not Promoting Your Business on Social Media or Using the Wrong Strategies

It's important to promote your business on multiple social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In fact, many of the most important marketing challenges and solutions are related to how you advertise your brand on social media.

Unfortunately, many small business owners don't know how to effectively promote their brand on these platforms. Here are a few tips that can improve your visibility on popular social media sites:

1. Always choose keywords that people who may be interested in your business are likely to type in. This will help you attract traffic from internal search engines on social media networks.
2. Regularly uploading new content to your company's social media pages can increase interest in your brand and improve brand loyalty.
   

Make Sure You Use the Right Social Media Marketing Strategies

A successful marketing plan for a small business owner will need to focus heavily on social media. However, each brand will need a unique approach. For instance, if you primarily focus on business-to-business (B2B) marketing, it's best to focus most strongly on networking platforms, such as LinkedIn. However, if you primarily utilize business-to-customer (B2C) marketing, you should put a stronger focus on platforms that are aimed at the general public. Facebook and Twitter are two excellent examples of these sites.

Your social media marketing campaign should also include strategies to improve your rankings on the internal search engines of these platforms. In addition, it's essential to make sure that you form a personal connection with potential customers. Here are a few tips that can help you do this effectively:

1. Honesty is extremely important on social media. In fact, research has found that many people see authenticity as the most important thing to look for when they're browsing the social media pages of small businesses in their area.
2. Always make sure that you quickly respond to people who post questions on your social media pages or reach out to you via the internal messaging system.
   

2. Choosing the Wrong Keywords

In order to promote your brand online, it's important to pick the right keywords for your website. According to many digital marketing experts, many of the most important marketing challenges and solutions pertaining to your choice of keywords. Luckily, if you follow these simple tips, you'll be able to do a better job of picking the right keywords for your business:

1. Always make sure that your keywords are directly relevant to what your business offers. This will ensure that the people who visit your website are likely to be the same individuals who will show an interest in your brand.
2. Make sure that your keywords are optimized for both voice and text search. This is especially important in 2022.
3. Make sure that you include the name of your city, county, or geographic region in some of your keywords. This will help to optimize your site for local traffic. Unfortunately, many small business owners fail to do this, but it's one of the most important marketing goals to set.
   

What are Some Other Ways to Optimize Your Search Rankings for Local Traffic?

Not only can including the name of your city, county, or broader geographical region improve your local rankings but completing a Google My Business profile can also help. That's because it can attract potential customers who are located in your city, and it can create a more trustworthy image for your brand.

In addition to making sure that the entire profile is filled out, it's essential to ensure that all of the information on your Google My Business profile is accurate. This includes your hours, locations, and information about your products or services. Encouraging customers to leave reviews on Google My Business can also help you attract new customers and maintain brand loyalty.

3. Not Doing Enough Competitor Research

If you only focus on your own online presence and don't research the competition, your marketing strategies won't be as effective as they need to be. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you're doing research on your competitors' online presence:

1. Pay close attention to their presence on social media platforms.
2. Do keyword research on your competitors. This can make it easier to effectively outrank them on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines.
   

4. Choosing the Wrong Target Audience

In order to promote your brand on the web, it's essential to make sure that you've picked the right target audience. Unfortunately, many small business owners try to market their brand to a broad, general audience. In most cases, this leads to a very low conversion rate. Here are a few tips that can help you find the right niche for your brand:

1. Looking at who follows your social media pages is a great way to learn about your company's target audience, and you'll be able to determine the typical age, geographical region, estimated disposable income, and other key demographic attributes of your audience.
2. Consider joining social media groups that are related to the types of products and/or services that you offer.
3. Traffic statistics for your company's website can help you determine how customers are most likely to find it.
   

Also, it's important to realize that your target audience may change if you begin offering new products or services. Here are a few tips that can help you effectively update your marketing strategies to reflect the ever-changing face of your brand's unique audience:

1. Post surveys on your company's social media pages to learn more about your audience.
2. Put a survey on your company's website to learn more about who tends to buy your products.
3. Analyze your user engagement statistics on social media to determine which platforms are most effective for your business.
   

5. Not Offering E-Commerce

As a business owner in 2022, offering convenient e-commerce for your customers is essential. Not only do you need to ensure that you offer a large selection of products, but it's important to ensure that buying merchandise from your website is as convenient as possible. Here are a few ways that you can do this effectively:

1. Make sure that you offer attractive deals. Also, if possible, you should always try to offer free shipping to your customers.
2. Ensure that you actively promote your e-commerce site on social media platforms, which are frequented by your target audience.
3. Make sure that one of your marketing goals is ensuring that you effectively promote your e-commerce site through multiple channels on and off the internet.
   

E-Marketing Associates Can Help You Grow Your Business

As digital marketing experts with more than 20 years of experience, you can count on us to effectively promote your business so you can get more sales and leads. We've worked with companies in just about every industry and can improve your search rankings, social media marketing strategy, your brand's website, and much more. To learn more about how to manage and grow your small business, subscribe to our emarketing newsletter.