The Biggest Digital Marketing Challenges for Local Businesses (and How To Solve Them)

Running a small business can feel like juggling a dozen tasks at once, with marketing often slipping through the cracks. In this blog post, we’re diving into the everyday challenges faced by small businesses when it comes to marketing, and how a few simple decisions can make a world of difference in your business.? Yes, decisions – it can be that simple!

Let’s start with your time.? Do you ever feel like marketing is the last thing you have time for? You’re not alone. From managing inventory to handling customer inquiries, small business owners wear many hats. But here’s the thing: investing in your marketing can pay off big time, and we’re here to show you how.

So, if you’ve ever found yourself nodding along and thinking, “Yep, been there, said that,” then keep reading. We’ve got some insights to share that just might change the game for your business.

I Don’t Have a Lot of Time

Time for small businesses boils down to 3 main points – Business owners just don’t have time for marketing, they can’t keep up with calls and emails from marketing, and they can’t keep checking up on results to make updates and optimizations to ensure that their investments are getting better.

• Solution – Marketing is the lifeblood of any good small business.? Especially one that wants to grow.? A dedicated marketing partner that understands how to acquire your ideal customer, and provide you a team within your budget, to do the heavy lifting for you.? Even better, is if they can take some of the sales related tasks off of your plate so you can focus on other business related issues.

Costs Concern Me

The other big hurdle to climb over is how much marketing and fees cost to get up and running and then the time it takes to see some results. These are valid concerns, but here is the solve!

• Work with marketing partners that have a playbook, and that have done it before!
• Your marketing agency should tailor your program to your business model, your product lines, and your budget – every time!
• Remember these truths: In good times, it’s the best time to scale and experiment. In bad times, it’s the most critical time to find your ideal customer.

Lack of Knowledge Is Holding Me Back

It can feel overwhelming at times to get started, especially when it’s about digital marketing. There are many channels to choose from, each with their own nuances such as advertising formats, and other buttons and levers within each platform. You might be paralyzed thinking about where to start and how. And, as a small business, you might be used to DIY and doing things on your own to start so you’re knowledgeable enough about it before you hire someone to take it on. Here’s the path forward:

• Digital Marketing for small businesses is a specialized skill, much like the service your small business provides and it wasn’t learned overnight. It’s ok not to know everything.
• Your marketing partner should be an expert and do the heavy lifting for you, but also through conversations, weekly meetings, and ongoing discussions educate you and be transparent with you about what data is telling them, how they are making decisions, and also bringing you information so you can be part of the decision making process. If you’re not getting smarter along the way, they might not be the best, or good, partners!

I Tried This Before, And I Didn’t See Results!

I have met plenty of businesses that have been ‘burned’ before by Fiverr, Freelancers, and other agencies. In fact, many of the people I've met, and helped, were previously scorned small businesses who were VERY reluctant to hire an agency ever again. Here’s what I've found happens, and here’s what they found went well, or different the next time around when they applied new methods...

• The bad actors: Vanity Metrics – they focus on impressions and clicks to your site. Not sales or outcomes. Transparency – they do not show their work, and may not run your ads in accounts that you own, making it hard for you to see your spend and data in real time.Reliable Reporting – other agencies do not offer reliable reporting, or do not have the capabilities to do this. If they can’t do it for themselves, they are missing the total picture. If they can’t do this well, how can they/or you expect them to perform if they can’t see the data clearly?! They shouldn’t be promising performance they can’t accurately track and measure.
• What's better: Metrics that matter – everything that your agency, should, translate to sales. In fact, they should structure their fees based on how well you do. If you don’t do well, should they – that’s how strongly we feel about it! Transparency – they should build, and run, all campaigns in advertising accounts that you own. You see everything, always!Reliable Reporting – we provide you with all the data you need to see results, and the context behind decisions we make as your portfolio manager. I believe great agencies are stewards of your money, and their job is to get you returns on that money just like you’d expect a money manager to work for you. They should use meetings to walk you through that step by step, follow through, and follow up!

Conclusion

Marketing is the lifeblood of small businesses and its extremely important to pick the right provider who has a playbook, who has done it before, who will educate you, who is transparent, and who will tie their own fees and financial success to your success as a business.

If you would like to have a discussion with one of our experts or owners, please feel free to me!