If your marketing strategy currently feels a little less than strategic, begin by pinning down your existing challenges. Once you’re clear on your roadblocks, it’s much easier to identify smart, tangible marketing solutions. Here are some common challenges we’ve seen businesses face, and what you can do about them.

Common Challenge #1: Limited Resources

Tight marketing budgets, a small team, and finite time can feel difficult to work with, but there are some simple steps you can take to boost the impact and effectiveness of your existing resources.

Marketing Solutions to Stretch your Resources

• Start with an audit. What are you doing now? What are your specific goals? What’s working and what isn’t working to help you achieve those goals? Schedule regular audits at least once a quarter. Repeat audits help refocus our priorities on a few key strategies that make the biggest impact.
• Cut the fluff and double down on your strengths. Invest strategically to target your niche. In our hyperconnected world, the constant “shiny objects” of our competitors’ latest tactics can tempt us to take a scattershot approach. Occasionally, capitalizing on excitement for new trends and tech will make our marketing more relevant and effective. Other times, it’s better to dedicate the majority of our resources to what’s already working. Either way, working with a professional like Big Storm can hone your marketing investments to provide the highest ROI.
• Embrace automation solutions. Whether you’re nurturing prospects through the buyer’s journey, or offloading non-critical tasks to supportive platforms and smarter tech, marketing automation streamlines vital aspects of your marketing and lead generation. This frees up more of your team’s time to do what they do best — like building relationships with your audience, supporting leads with a personal touch, and delivering the unforgettable service your brand is known for.
• Outsource your marketing where it makes sense. When you need a new skillset to support your marketing goals, handling it internally means either someone on your team has to learn it (sometimes self-guided, which can lead to costly mistakes due to inexperience), or you have to make a new hire. Just because we can DIY something doesn’t necessarily mean we should. Sometimes, the better approach is to outsource tasks and projects you don’t have the capacity or skills for, especially if your team struggles to hit marketing deadlines or wears too many hats. Outsourcing to Big Storm provides a more affordable solution than hiring a new team member, and eliminates the “learning time” of teaching an existing employee. It allows you to engage true subject matter experts, increasing efficiency and efficacy, and promoting business growth — we have all the tools and experience needed to research and identify ideal marketing solutions for your needs.

Common Challenge #2: Few Leads, Low Engagement

Are you dealing with low traffic, lackluster interest, and few conversions? Strengthening the foundation of your message and revamping your content can be a great way to increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and generate the results you want.

Marketing Solutions to Increase Leads and Engagement

• Begin with brand strategy. Clear messaging and purposeful delivery set you up to not just overcome this challenge, but to create meaningful pathways for genuine audience connection in the long term. How do you make a difference? What’s your competitive advantage or unique selling proposition? How do you communicate that while making it personal for your audiences? Don’t focus on increasing your visibility until you’ve clarified your what, why, and how! A brand marketing strategy ensures that your message is delivered consistently across all your channels of communication. Working from the strong foundation of both branding and marketing strategy helps build awareness around what you do for people, and makes it easy for them to take that step from prospect to customer.
• Make your SEO work for you, not against you. In the eyes of Google, your website’s search engine optimization is seldom neutral — those algorithms are constantly reevaluating how your site is (or isn’t) relevant to online readers. While SEO is a complex beast, the best approach is to ensure that your site provides meaningful content that answers readers’ search queries and to focus on the experience on your website. As a key digital marketing solution, great SEO combines worthwhile information with a great user experience, to increase the right traffic to generate highly-qualified leads and customers.
• Grow your opt-in email list. Once people visit your website, what’s your strategy for nurturing prospects? A simple newsletter signup box in your website footer rarely captures the excitement of anyone but the most ardent fans of your brand. But by offering free, pertinent content — in the form of a downloadable PDF, for example — you can encourage opt-in through a win-win approach. In this way, you grow your list with leads that are already genuinely interested in what you can do for them, showcasing your offering and thought leadership while building trust.

Whether your business is a fresh startup, an established brand, or somewhere in between, it’s common to face challenges in your marketing. And especially as business and everyday life begins to emerge from the immediate effects of the pandemic, overcoming obstacles and calibrating our “new normals” will look unique across different communities and industries. A realistic, flexible, adaptive approach to marketing challenges will set your company up for both immediate and long-term success.

If you are ready to build your brand awareness and benefit from an individualized strategy, consider partnering with a digital marketing agency like Big Storm. We specialize in marketing solutions that streamline your work, amplify your message, and create measurable results.