Major Business Marketing Problems (And Their Solutions)

Marketing is a challenging game, especially with the wealth of options at the disposal of the modern business. And, whether your business is big or small, every marketer will face a similar set of challenges at one point or another.

And that means there’s always room for improvement. With a challenge comes a problem, and with a problem comes something that needs working on.

But what are the biggest problems that modern marketers face? Which issues are the most common? From struggling with money to global expansion, they’re aplenty. We’ve sifted through them all and drawn out the most prominent, major marketing problems your business will face.

And their solutions!

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Problem: Struggling to spread a thin marketing budget

Solution

Got money issues? You aren’t alone. A lack of a substantial budget is one of the most common problems faced by modern marketers, and it’s not hard to see why. There are so many channels that demand our attention that it becomes difficult to know where to splash the cash.

But there are a couple of basic insights you can glean to help you understand where your audience is. Does your business manufacture video game accessories? Your target audience is likely to be millennials, who are constantly on their smartphones. As such, investing in mobile-friendly ad campaigns would be a wise move.

If your target audience is older consumers, who aren’t as focused on the web, then offline marketing should be your primary concern. This can help you concentrate your small budget on the areas that need it the most.

Another solution is to track your ROI (return on investment) for each marketing campaign you run. Doing so can tell you how much cash you stand to make so you know how much you have for the next campaign. Plus, if your campaigns are a success you’ll be more likely to receive a bigger budget.

Problem: Unable to thoroughly track advertising data

Solution

Speaking of tracking metrics, a lot of marketers struggle with gathering their analytics and data. With Google Trends being all but useless and the built in features of many CMSs lacking, it’s hard to find a full tracking suite all in one place.

And, because the modern ad campaign is so in depth, it becomes important to evaluate success across many different mediums. There are social media pages like Twitter, company websites and any targeted marketing efforts dotted around the web.

Fortunately, ad management software is a thing, for those marketers that are struggling. It’s vital to keep an eye on metrics like bids, conversions and long-tail keywords, and doing so all from one place is even better.

Problem: Targeting an international audience

Solution

Expanding overseas on a global scale isn’t easy – but who said that it was? And while it’s far from simple, it’s imperative. There are only so many consumers you can target on home soil, and eventually, you’ll need to spread those wings. And fly.

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One answer to this issue is to ensure your content is understandable, in any language. You can do this by using videos and images – formats that anyone, of any culture, can understand. A man slipping on a banana peel is funny in any country and you should take the same approach with your marketing.

I’m not saying you should film one of your employees slipping on a banana peel, but the principle stands. Create videos, images and GIFs that aren’t reliant on local slang or dialect, and share them with the world. It’s the easiest way to grow.

Alternatively, you can keep an eye on timezones to determine the best time to post certain things. This can get tricky if you want to target multiple different groups, but it can help you focus up and place specific posts in the right timeslots.

One final option is to create social media accounts for specific countries. You may have noticed some popular brands doing this; Netflix US and UK, for example, or PlayStation France. This takes some of the work off your shoulders because it forces the consumer to come to you, instead of the other way around.

Problem: Marketing department and sales department communication failure

Solution

So your sales and design team are working incredibly hard to provide consumers with new products and services. But, unfortunately, your marketing team is on a different path entirely. The two visions simply don’t correlate, which can get incredibly frustrating.

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And once the damage is done, how do you rectify that? How do you retract the image that the public now has of you and your product? Well, you can’t, but you can work hard to solve those internal problems first.

Start by appointing a middle man, a person who will liaise with both departments. This allows communication between both parties to develop, instead of staying stagnant. This person can report back to the two and make sure that the vision of the product lines up with what the public sees from it.

Alternatively, you could try simply merging the two departments. Have the people that work on your marketing and sales the same group. Depending on the structure of your business this may not always be possible, but it’s worth looking into.

The benefit to this is that you can work on product design and creation, and then move right onto marketing. This will only work if you have a small inventory with enough time to spend on a single product.

Overall: No problems!

Well, hopefully anyway. You never know what can rear its head when you play the marketing game. The reality of the situation is that marketing is a constant uphill battle, and very rarely will it become easy.

But it can be made easier by addressing these few issues. Most won’t even take you long at all – you can be done in a short space of time. And the benefits of spending that small amount of time are much greater than you’d imagine.

Are there any problems (and solutions!) that we missed? Please let us know in the comments below, and be sure to share this post on social media!