If you’re a small business owner, we’re sure the first thing that came to your mind after reading this title was – money. The most difficult part while running a small business is setting aside a budget out of the already tight budget for digital marketing, which you know is important. Plus, finding resources who will help you spend that money optimally.
So, along with this primary challenge, in this blog post, we’ll address two others too. Keep reading because we have solutions for them too!
Money Matters
How much to spend? Where to spend? How long should we spend before we see results? These are the common questions you might have before initiating a marketing campaign. All are valid, especially because there’s a limited budget and naturally you expect the best out of your investment. Now why is this a challenge? The problem is not that there’s little money, the problem lies in the way we approach digital marketing. What we first need to change is our unrealistic expectations from digital marketing efforts. If someone promises you to get 10x your followers in a month, know that it’s impossible. Impossible to get that number, impossible to guarantee that number. After running paid ads for almost 3 months, you can get an estimate of the metrics you’re looking for, but still, no one can and should promise you an exact number. Because we think things can change overnight, we expect the returns on our money overnight too. And when that doesn’t happen, out of impatience, you halt the campaign and unfortunately undo all the progress that’s been made. So, what do you?
- Identify platforms that are the most suitable for you right now. Instead of promoting on all social media platforms, focus on one, get maximum results from it, and then slowly extend your efforts to another platform.
- Hire in-house resources or agencies who understand the concepts in-depth. The ones who can answer the why behind every step they make are the ones who can also analyse the results effectively.
- Ask your resources questions on how they have executed their earlier campaigns. This is to understand their thought process and overall approach to growing a brand. If your thoughts align, you know your money is in safe hands.
- Be very clear from the start about your objectives from the money you’re spending. But do not expect sales to happen from day 1 of creating content on social media. Have patience and be consistent. Desirable results will follow!
- Additionally, consider the use of free or low-cost digital marketing tools and platforms, such as Google Analytics, Canva, and Hootsuite, to manage and optimize your efforts efficiently.
- Finally, review the progress monthly so that you know what needs to be stopped, paused, or continued so that your money is used in a better way the following month.
Communication Chaos
What do we say? We know what we do and why we do it, but we don’t how to convey it to our customers. This is yet another concern small business owners normally have – presenting their brand story in a format that will be widely accepted by the masses online. It’s fair too, because sometimes your product is a generic one, and it’s difficult to stand out among your competition. Sometimes, it’s so niche that you aren’t sure whether there’s an audience to hear your very specific interest and story. So how do you ensure you have a story worth sharing?
- Spend some time to figure out a strong why for your product/service. Why did you start your business, why is your product/service better among others, why should anyone consider you. This is a time-consuming activity, but it will help you in the long run to maintain consistency in communication and instil a good brand recall.
- If your product/service is generic and is being offered by many others, figure out a way to creatively approach the topic. For example, pick one of the most important features of your offering and build a communication theme around one single feature and be known for it.
- If you’re looking to hire an agency, look for agencies who have detailed brief document with questions that make you think more about your brand. For example, in our brief document, we include questions about brand personality, desired messaging, interests of target audience, and more such thought-provoking questions so that we understand the brand thoroughly.
Lack Of Expertise
When you’re just starting out, it’s easy to think that you can do it all. Especially when it comes to digital marketing, because you feel since you’re a daily consumer of content, it will be easier to daily create content too. But even you know it’s far from the truth. It’s difficult to be a one-person army and get desirable results always. And if you do it from a place of little to zero knowledge, your efforts will need to be doubled. But do you have the time for this experimentation? In most cases, you don’t. So what do you do?
- Always consider hiring a responsible resource to whom you can delegate these tasks. At this stage, hiring someone experienced might be difficult, but having a single point of contact for digital marketing will reduce your workload. You might need to give them guidance at frequent intervals, and they should be good to go.
- If you would like to get rid of this whole pressure altogether, hire an agency that fits your budget. Because having a team who thinks about improving your reach always while you focus on the other important parts of business is always going to be in your favour.
- If hiring is an absolute no-no, then consider upskilling yourself by learning basic tools needed for digital marketing and ensure you’re making an educated guess and not just shooting in the dark. This will at least help you map your efforts and results in an effective way.
Remember, digital marketing journey is a continuous one, and it’s a fruitful one, but only if you are patient and consistent!
