To state the obvious, running a small business is not easy. From time and resource constraints, to cash flow challenges and succession planning… it’s amazing that the day-to-day operations even get done some days!
Now of course, this is a marketing blog, so I’m going to discuss six of the top marketing challenges that small business owners face, and offer some quick tips for how to overcome them. In future posts, I will dive into each point in more detail.
- Recruiting and Human Resources
But… HR has nothing to do with Marketing, does it? Actually it does. Of course, recruiting is not just about marketing, but your employer brand, your value proposition for prospective employees, and your ability to attract talent are inextricably linked. Similar to understanding customer needs, It’s really important to understand the expectations of prospective candidates so that you are positioned to meet their needs with a fair and competitive employment offer. - Creating and Maintaining a Competitive Advantage
Defining your competitive advantage is not just something you do at time of startup or while designing a new product or service, but you want to review this annually. When was the last time you took an inventory of your main competitors, and assessed how you measure up against them?
There are many different frameworks that can be used to conduct a thorough competitive analysis, which can then be used to define your key differentiators and develop strong, targeted messaging for your customer base. - Growing Your Customer Base
There are many marketing activities that can be taken to create awareness for your offerings, but the first step to finding new customers is to define exactly who they are. The best way to do this is to create customer personas for each of your target segments. Personas typically include demographics, motivations, aspirations, information channels, pain points and challenges, and buying behaviour.
Once your customer personas are created, you will have a clearer sense of how to effectively speak to, and offer the best value to prospective buyers. Creating personas will also help you uncover the best channels, and the most effective types of media for communicating with your target audience. - Creating Loyal Customers
So once a customer buys from you, how do you ensure they come back to buy again? How do you encourage them to recommend your product or service to others? You should spend some time developing a strategy to ensure that you are doing everything you can to not only retain your customers, but to create raving fans who talk favourably about you. - Marketing on a Budget
“Marketing” sounds expensive, doesn’t it? The good news is that it doesn’t have to be. Regardless of budget, there are definitely some activities you should be doing to market your products or services. From organic or paid social media channels to promote your company, optimizing your website to increase its search rankings, to partnering with well-known influencers, the opportunities to create awareness for your company and your brand are endless. A lot of my future posts will focus on budget-friendly marketing ideas for your business. - Communications and Privacy Compliance
While you may not think this is one of your biggest challenges, I’m putting it the list anyway. As a marketing professional who has spent a great deal of time learning the ins-and-outs of communications best practices, anti-spam legislation (CASL, in Canada), and data privacy requirements, I am always amazed by how many small businesses don’t even come close to getting this right. A data breach or fine for not adhering to CASL guidelines can be crippling, so it’s critical that you have a solid understanding of the legislation, and documented processes for handling these areas of your business.
My next several blog posts will go into each of these areas in more depth and I’ll offer some guidance on how to manage these specific pain points so that you can (hopefully) focus on taking over the world!