Navigating the world of marketing as a small business has become exponentially challenging in the last few years. Complications from the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing range of channels to market through, and increased competition means that your small business needs to be able to adapt and be agile as you plan for the future.
As you start to think about the next year and the marketing goals you want to set in your small businesses, it’s important to also think about the potential challenges that await as well. Understanding the different challenges and having plans in place to manage any potential difficulties is important for those who want to see small business growth and success in 2022.
Let’s take a look at six of the biggest upcoming small business marketing challenges that you should be prepared for, and take a look into ways that the Surefire Local marketing platform can help you manage and overcome these challenges.
1. Using Data and Insights In the Right Ways
Digital marketing brings about many different benefits for small businesses, one of which is the amount of data and information that can be collected. Social media, ad campaigns, website traffic, and SEO monitoring tools all collect data about your customers and prospects. However, knowing what to do with the data can become a little more challenging.
One of the biggest small business marketing challenges that many companies face is knowing what to do with an overload of data and how to turn the mountains of information into actionable insights. After all, data isn’t any good if you can’t use it to inform your next decisions and make educated choices.
Online marketing tools like Surefire Local can help you utilize your data and insights in the most effective ways possible, allowing you to use data and insights to make quick decisions, pivot your strategy to take advantage of what’s working, and make every dollar in your budget count.
When you have a clear view of your data and can use insights to take informed action, your business will have a better chance at growth into 2022 and beyond.
2. Working From Anywhere
Gone are the days of morning commutes and small office cubicles. The changes to the ways businesses are run as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have made doing work an on-the-go activity. New management styles, working from home options, flexible schedules, and increased employee independence have led to a new age of business practices. Most of these changes are beneficial to increasing employee satisfaction and creating happy, enthused teams who are excited about going to work, even if that means going to a home office rather than a company building.
However, one of the unintended consequences of working from anywhere is an increased belief in 24/7 business. As customers can engage with your business from different devices and locations, the ability to stay on top of demands even when they come in after hours means that your business needs to be adaptable.
In order to meet the increased demands of your customer base, one of the small business marketing challenges you need to prepare for in 2022 is finding a software option that is available everywhere. It’s important that you are able to manage your business across browsers and devices, and that you can stay ahead of customer demands.
Finding a software option like Surefire Local will help you manage your business on the go and at any time of the day. When you can delight your customers and provide quality experiences no matter where you are or what device you use, you’ll bring them back for more and build your business more effectively.
3. Becoming More Accessible Online
In addition to expanding your business across different browsers and devices, you also need to expand your reach across different online channels. Small businesses need to go where their customers are, rather than depending on customers to come to them. That means that you need to create a marketing strategy that allows you to reach your customers.
In order to know where to best begin expanding your online presence, you first need to know which channels your audience spends their time on. Once you’ve determined the platforms that your business should have a presence on, you can then think about the best strategies that bring you closer to your key audience segments.
Strategies like digital advertisements, engaging videos, professional photos, informative listings, and helpful text and chat features all help you become more accessible to your prospects and customers. When your customers have a clear picture of what your business is and how to reach you, you can bring in more potential business.
Tools like chatbots can help your business be accessible to customers at any time of day, and an all-in-one marketing platform like Surefire Local can help your small business keep track of when customers reach out and through what channels they do so. That in turn helps you understand which areas need improvement and what is already working successfully.
4. Maintaining Accuracy and Consistency
Another major marketing challenge that small businesses face is keeping your information accurate, up to date, and consistent across all the platforms you are represented on. With so many different avenues and approaches, it can be difficult to manage the different accounts and profiles your company has.
Your branding and brand message need to be consistent, otherwise, you risk confusing your customers and coming across as either inauthentic or distrustful to your potential prospects. Brand consistency helps create a strong brand image and helps your small business remain professional and authoritative to customers and search engine ranking algorithms.
However, when you have business appearances on many different sites, sometimes up to 80+, it can be nearly impossible to manage each piece of information. Have you ever checked your Google My Business listing and realized you forgot to update your hours, or checked a social media bio and found an old, broken link? These types of mistakes can cause serious damage to your small business.
In order to maintain accuracy and consistency in your online presence, you need to control and check all your information from a single location. A marketing tool like Surefire Local can help you navigate the difficult terrain of brand consistency and connect all your profiles, accounts, and bios to a central location that can be updated in a single place.
5. Engaging Your Customers
In addition to managing your profiles and information, there are also numerous other important touchpoints that your marketing strategy includes to engage your customers. Small business marketing challenges often include the organization and management of these multiple strategies across different platforms, channels, departments, and campaigns.
Having a singular location doesn’t just help you maintain brand consistency, but can also help your small business manage all your important marketing functions. When your entire marketing strategy can be enacted through a single platform, you can increase your efficiency, provide important consistency measures, and keep all team members on the same page with ease.
The Surefire Local marketing platform is a great example of a marketing tool that helps you engage with your customers from a single location. Within the tool, you can publish blogs to your website, add photos and posts to your Google My Business account, share posts on social media, and send emails to contacts.
When you can process your customer engagement strategies in a single place, you can get a better idea of the results of your campaigns and marketing efforts. When all your touchpoints run through the same system, you get a better picture of success and have more accurate reports to help you understand data and pivot your marketing strategies accordingly.
6. Getting Expert Help
As a small business owner, saying you wear many different hats is an understatement. Your time and focus are spread across many different areas of the business, including sales, recruitment, accounting, operations, and ownership. Managing these small business marketing challenges can take a lot of time, and when you are already spread thin, you likely don’t have the time, resources, or know-how to master solutions on your own.
That’s where Surefire Local comes in. As marketing experts, we can help your small business manage all the upcoming challenges that you need to prepare for in 2022. Our business intelligence marketing software helps you manage all the different marketing channels of your business in a single location accessible on any browser or device. If you are interested in learning more about how Surefire Local can help you overcome the small business marketing challenges you face, contact us today and get started on setting your business up for success now and in the future.