Several professionals specify advertising and marketing as a “set of techniques, strategies, and studies that aim to improve a product or service by finding the best way to present and sell it.
But basically, marketing is all that helps you to sell more products. Well, it’s more than that; It is about how your potential customers will see your brand and the products or services that you are offering. We can see that marketing is about the way your employees approach your customers or the email you send them for Christmas.
Large corporations know that, as they apply these techniques very well in their marketing and sales departments.
But what happens with most small businesses, entrepreneurs and autonomous?
The vast majority of companies don’t have a marketing department because in many cases they were created by freelancers who have decided to create their own business and never studied marketing, nor do they know how to apply it correctly in their sales strategy.
This is why I want to analyze the 10 challenges or problems that many companies will face when working with marketing.
· 10 Common Marketing Challenges or Problems That Many Businesses Will face
These are some of them and if you work or manage your own business, you will surely feel identified with most of these issues:
1.- Not knowing how to explain the product or service you want to sell
Often, being an expert on a product doesn’t make you the best person to sell it.
You know the features of your product, the manufacturing steps, the materials used, the best applications, but you don’t know how to explain your product to the possible buyer, for whom all these hundreds of product features matter little because he is just looking for one of them.
Any item or service should be explained from the customer’s perspective. What is the customer looking for when evaluating this service or product?
Price, quality, reliability, for something that will solve a problem, that will make his life more comfortable, or elevate his social status.
The business owner, a freelancer, a merchant, a liberal professional, someone in charge of selling your products or services; or vendors and clerks, waiters at bars and restaurants, all of them should receive training to learn how to sell your products, with instructions on how the product can help potential customers.
“Your product or service is not good because it’s yours, it’s good because your customers want to buy it.
This brings us to the next problem, especially at the beginning of any business:
2.- Not finding your market segment
Opening a business and think that all the inhabitants of the planet will love it is a very common mistake many entrepreneurs make.
But if this entrepreneur has a little idea about social networks or simply has many friends on his personal Facebook.
Let’s see some examples:
- A single person will not be interested in becoming a customer of a lawyer dedicated to Family Law (divorces).
- If a seller goes to a nursing home to sell articles for mountaineering, he will not be able to find potential customers.
- Distributing pamphlets in a high school with the Rolls Royce’s latest model is not a good strategy as it will not generate any sale.
Do you understand what I mean?
We all sell something to someone. The problem of small businesses and, above all, of the entrepreneurs who are starting, is that they don’t have much data to determine who is the ideal buyer for their product?
It is vital to pre-define your ideal buyer and your market segment.
By doing this, you will have a much clearer idea of the potential of your new business. If you find that there are only a few customers interested in your articles or services, you will know that you will have to create a targeted sales strategy to attract more customers. Perhaps you could think and act as a local business, or if your product has a larger audience, you could create an international sales strategy.
Also, you’ll know why your potential customers are looking for your product or service.
They may be attracted to the novelty (especially in technological products), they may be interested in price, quality, social status, in a temporary solution, etc.
Once you know what your ideal clients are looking for, you can explain better your product, and you will have more sales and more advantages.
3.- Lack of commercial department
The commercial department is one of the most relevant parts of any successful business. In times of financial crisis, a good commercial department can save your company.
So imagine what you can do during the good times. The problem is that we believe that only the commercial department can sell and that other departments don’t have to worry about it.
If you have a restaurant, all waiters should be good salespeople; your store employees should be good salespeople, if you are a lawyer, you must learn to become a successful seller.
Organize your small or medium business so that everyone can learn how to sell your products or services.
Unfortunately, many companies don’t work hard enough to train all the collaborators to become vendors, people able to offer their products or services for potential customers.
If you have a sales section and you have created a sales department, let them do their work.
If someone stands out for his accomplishments, reward him, encourage other collaborators to learn from him. You should be the first to learn from him and try to improve.
A good salesperson can quickly identify what he will need to do to sell (he will work with his boss asked him to sell). A good seller knows how to approach potential customers, building customer loyalty, how to generate cross-selling (increasing revenue per customer and the company’s profits)
4.- Invisibility of your business
Promoting your business should be one of your main tasks if you want to become a businessperson. The problem arises when choosing the medium and the resources that will be used.
Advertising a company is very simple and can be very cheap.
But if you use a medium that is not appropriate and you address people who are not interested in your product or service, you will only have lost time and money.
Some of the platforms you can use to advertise your business are:
– Press releases, radio, and television (locally, regionally, nationally, internationally) or ads on different platforms on the Internet.
- Leaflets on car windshields, in mailboxes, in the hands of people passing by your store. Does it sound like “vintage”? But why not?
- Create a business blog site, setting it for your specialist market and also begin revealing the benefits of your firm and also all the options you provide to boost the lives of your prospective consumers.
- Profiles and also web pages on social media networks. Also, you can develop paid advertisements on these social media networks, as the current modifications on numerous formulas don’t enable you to get to many individuals.
- Organize an occasion that additionally assists the neighborhood, to ensure that the media will certainly get the word out concerning the occasion and also consequently assist get the word out concerning your service.
- Even messages in WhatsApp can be an excellent method to advertise your service and also even more given that the arrival of the brand-new “WhatsApp Business. “
But each of these forms of advertising is more efficient for a type of business than to another.
Paying for an advertisement on a regional television channel if you run a small local business will not help you much.
If you have a blog, but don’t update it, to talk directly to your readers about the advantages of your business by posting articles, talking about your services, you are missing an incredible opportunity to create engagement with your visitors.
Instagram is a platform used mostly by women, most of them use this social network regularly. A priori, announce articles for men’s hygiene wouldn’t be a good option.
But as you know that this ad will be seen mostly by women, you can modify your campaign to convince them to buy your products for their husbands, boyfriends, companions, brothers. ”
When it involves advertising and marketing, the initial point to bear in mind is what you intend to attain. Once you identify your objective, you must examine the marketplace to discover which media or systems are the most effective networks for your project.
●For instance, uploading an advertisement for guys’s items in a publication for ladies and also young adults. BLUNDER
● Publishing the exact same advertisement in a publication committed to football, cars and trucks, and so on. EXCELLENT TECHNIQUE
Local social media networks and also the on the internet globe are ending up being crucial for any type of advertising and marketing method. We all bring a smart device in our pocket and also when we require to obtain something, we can discover it online:
“Where is the nearest open pharmacy to me, where to find a locksmith, Best places to have lunch.”
5.- Problems with the rate of your item
You might assume that the rate of what you are offering is not crucial for your advertising and marketing method. If that’s what you assume, you are incorrect.
The rate of the item is necessary to the success of the firm and also must be viewed as “fair” by your consumers.
Would you agree to pay $ 1,000 for a canister of Coke? Never.
You will certainly need to figure out the rate of your item considering, initially, your specialist situations, and afterwards look for out just how much your rivals are billing for the exact same items.
Perhaps your rivals might not have the home loans you need to pay; they might not require to pay the team you need to pay, or they get on service for a very long time, which suggests they can have some benefits or arrangements with makers or suppliers and also can provide much more affordable rates that would certainly make your service unwise.
This is why you need to initially figure out just how much you will certainly require to bill for the item.
You will certainly require to discover what the minimal quantity you can bill is, so you don’t win or shed, the restriction whereby, if you bill much less, you would certainly shed cash despite the variety of products you market.
Once you recognize the rate, the following action will certainly be to “decorate” the item so your prospective consumers will certainly purchase from you and also not from your rivals.
A coffee normally sets you back concerning the exact same in any type of bar, the top quality of the solution, the decor, the setting, the professionalism and trust of the waitress are what will certainly make the distinction.
Competing for rates is a harmful method that, in the long-term, normally will not function well. A couple of years earlier, a baker went down the rate of bread.
For a while, he was really effective. He made really little cash, yet he was offering a great deal of bread.
A couple of months earlier, he revealed he would certainly need to shut his bakeshops, as he didn’t have cash to pay his big financial obligation. Along the method, lots of bakeshops that offered their items at greater rates additionally shut, as they couldn’t pay for to provide the exact same rates.
Now an entire area of Spain doesn’t have any type of bakeshop; individuals need to get bread at grocery stores and also filling station. They can’t get bread near their residence.
6.- Lack of sychronisation in between advertising and marketing and also sales divisions
Not all business have seasonal sales, yet every one of them have peak sales and also months with less sales.
Marketing activities must be collaborated with what must be offered in every duration, yet this doesn’t constantly occur.
You shouldn’t spend for an advertisement when your firm doesn’t have the most effective items to provide. You might assume this must be apparent, yet numerous supervisors invest a great deal of cash on projects that will certainly never ever bring excellent outcomes for their advertising and marketing method.
If you access the social media networks of a number of dining establishments, you’ll see a clear instance of what I’m claiming. If you search for dining establishments on Facebook, you will most likely discover much of them uploading at 7 pm images of the food that was offered for lunch.
What they must do at 7 o’clock in the mid-day is to discuss what their consumers will certainly discover when they leave job, or the food selection they will certainly have for supper.
What you require is for the advertising and marketing division to recognize what to market and also when to market each item.
Following with the instance of the dining establishment. What is the advantage of uploading images of soup that is incredibly popular throughout the winter season, yet we are not using today due to the fact that it is really warm? Who, in his ideal mind, will intend to obtain soup in the center of summertime?
A shop ought to not develop a promo for offering followers throughout the winter season. A style shop must not purchase advertisements to market layers throughout the summertime. We can provide you a lot more instances, yet I assume you currently recognized what we are attempting to claim.
And that brings us to the following usual advertising and marketing issue:
7.- Not having an advertising and marketing strategy
Every firm, big, little or tool has a well established timetable, they recognize when they will certainly enable their team to take place trip, they recognize when to pay their tax obligations, when to get brand-new items.
But really couple of business, little and also tool, have an advertising and marketing strategy. It is crucial to recognize which services or products must be marketed to motivate the sales, or when they must do it.
To develop a reliable advertising and marketing strategy, you’ll require to recognize when it’s finest to market something or an additional.
For instance, the variety of separations raises substantially in late summertime, when pairs go back to their everyday regimen after the trip. Lawyers will certainly obtain even more customers promoting their solutions in the late summertime than throughout the vacations.
In very early summertime, many individuals begin seeking health clubs due to the fact that they intend to shed a couple of extra pounds. If you are preparing an advertising and marketing prepare for a fitness center, this is the most effective time to begin spreading your tasks and also draw in a few of these consumers that are seeking a fitness center.
Planning suggests doing points at the correct time, not even if you assume you must attempt something various.
8.- Lack of Brand Image, Professional Reputation, Personal Branding
Every service has a specific credibility, whether unfavorable, neutral or favorable. Without this credibility, you can’t exist as a business.
The credibility will certainly transform and also potentially boost gradually. You must have a well-known, differentiable brand name picture of your rivals.
The design you trouble your service, your style, your professionalism and trust, your items, your after-sales solution. Many variables will certainly assist develop an excellent brand name photo. An excellent specialist credibility will certainly be essential to obtaining brand-new consumers and also doing brand-new service.
This credibility can make all the distinction to consumers that will certainly need to make a decision, usually subconsciously, if they will certainly rely on one brand name or an additional. The instance we can make use of right here are the attorneys. A legal representative with an excellent credibility can obtain even more cash. If many individuals claim this legal representative can win all the lawful requests, he will certainly be the front runner of individuals that intend to win their lawsuits. The exact same point occurs with physicians, technicians, dental professionals, and so on.
If you can’t be identified for your professionalism and trust, you can attempt to develop a favorable credibility based upon the decor of your shop, or just how you assist your consumers, in a cozy setting, or on various other variables that pertain to you and also your consumers.
Every firm needs to be plainly identified and also have a unique brand name identification. Ideally, professionalism and trust ought to be the primary differential, yet this is not definitely needed.
I’m considering the poor credibility of a widely known international shop committed to style that constantly provide low cost.
Customers that enter their shops don’t obtain assistance or excellent therapy from vendors (that normally simply fold t-shirts), yet many individuals remain to purchase from them, because of an essential element: top quality and also low cost.
9.- Not having an excellent online existence
As we mentioned over, today everybody has a smart device in their pocket attached to the web. At whenever, anybody can be seeking our products or items and also if we are not on the internet, we will certainly shed those sales.
Having an excellent online existence is not having an out-of-date site,a blog in which you don’t release anything, a web page in a social media network where you simply market your short articles, simply a couple of images.
An excellent online existence suggests that your site needs to be energetic and also be useful. You require to provide a number of call choices, with an energetic assistance team to assist your consumers to address their troubles and also uncertainties to ensure that they can trust you.
The exact same goes with e-mails.
Ricardo Llop, a recommendation in digital business in Spain specified that the initial point he does when he enters his workplace is to reply to his e-mails.
And the last job he does prior to going residence to remainder is to address the e-mails in his inbox. The distinction in between replying to an e-mail currently or leaving a client awaiting 8 hrs is that you will certainly market much more if you give quick assistance.
With social media networks, you require to be equally as cautious. They must not be your main sales network. Think concerning your social media networks as a thematic tv network concerning your service. You must develop a network where site visitors can discover details concerning decor, traveling (on the motif of your market and also the items you are offering). You can utilize this network to discuss your items, yet not almost them.
It is apparent that if you possess a dining establishment, you must market your food selection on your social media networks.
But if you truly intend to draw in fans, you require to discuss even more than that, as an example on the items made use of in the dishes, with basic ideas concerning just how to boost consuming practices, and so on.
Also, all social media networks have choices for sending out and also obtaining personal messages. It is an ideal sales and also after-sales network. You must additionally constantly reply to all remarks from your consumers and also fans.
Responding to these remarks is basic to reveal to your consumers that you are paying attention to them.
10.- To assume that advertising and marketing is not needed.
Believing that we are the most effective, that we understand every little thing we need to do to market our item is an extremely usual blunder that numerous business owners make, particularly initially, when they are still filled with concepts for their brand-new service.
Believing that individuals will certainly go to your shop even if you claim you have the most effective item at the most effective rate is a blunder that will certainly wind up costing you a great deal of cash.
Marketing, as we have actually seen throughout this post (and also in the meaning you review initially) is a collection of activities produced for offering your items.
No service makes it through without advertising and marketing; it doesn’t matter what you do, you will certainly need to collaborate with a few of the advertising and marketing activities we explained in this blog post.
The issue is something that we have actually currently clarified. An excellent method suggests using the suitable activities at the correct time, making use of the most effective network for every project, to ensure that we can have the anticipated outcomes: We all intend to market even more items and also draw in brand-new consumers.
How Many Entrepreneurs Create Untimely Marketing Strategies That Don’t bring the wanted outcomes? When they invest cash and also don’t obtain brand-new consumers, they wind up thinking that advertising and marketing will certainly not help them.
Conclusion: Marketing Challenges for Businesses
Throughout this post, we spoke about the primary troubles little business deal with when collaborating with advertising and marketing.
As you have actually checked out, much of these troubles are not because of the absence of funds, however, for absence of preparation, expertise, in a lot of cases of rate of interest in finding out brand-new points.
Today, with the on the internet globe within your reaches, you have no reason for neglecting advertising and marketing as an essential method for offering much more.
It holds true that an excellent specialist will certainly improve outcomes than an amateur, yet there are hundreds of short articles on the Internet that discuss just how to do points appropriately, just how to handle your social media networks, just how to handle your firm, just how to establish the ideal rate, just how to collaborate with price cuts, and also far more than that.
Nowadays, points are usually refrained appropriately because of neglect. Unfortunately, we often tend to assume we currently recognize sufficient, and also this is the most awful blunder you can make.
I really hope since you have actually completed reviewing this post, you will certainly prepare to begin functioning to boost the advertising and marketing method for your job.
We’d enjoy for you to inform us just how points are choosing you. Would you leave us a remark?
