Top 3 Marketing Challenges of 2022
2022 is already proving to be a challenging year for everyone but businesses are feeling it too. Particularly within marketing, some challenges have presented themselves this year, which businesses will have to overcome. From the everyday struggle to gather new leads to the rising cost of living and demand for marketing knowledge-making hiring a dedicated marketing team is more expensive, businesses of various sizes will have to find ways of coping with multiple, if not all of these challenges this year.
1. Training Marketing Talent
According to Hubspot’s Digital Marketing survey, the top challenge for most marketing departments this year will be the sourcing and training of recruits as they learn the ropes of the Digital Marketing industry. Regardless of whether the new talent that companies take on are recent graduates, previously inexperienced in marketing of any kind, or very experienced marketers, training needs to be done regardless of experience levels. This could be to get them up to speed on company processes, your CRM system of choice, or to teach them everything from the ground up.
This presents a huge challenge, particularly to smaller marketing teams that may only consist of 1 or 2 people before the new talent joins them. This is because they are probably stretched thin as it is without having to oversee the work that their newest colleague is carrying out. This limited amount of time that each team member has can severely limit the progress that new marketing talent makes over a short period and even affect the quality of work from supporting team members. Even bigger teams can struggle here if their onboarding and training processes aren’t as solid as they could be.
The solution
The first step to solving this issue is to change your definition of “training”. This should take into account the different experiences and skills that your new team members already possess and realise that training could be on the different processes that your marketing department uses. All marketing departments will be different in one form or another, so even the most experienced marketer will need to get used to the way that you do things. On the other hand, maybe they do need to be trained in a couple of areas in which you need them to be proficient. It’s all about working out the needs of the business and working with the individual to help them drive towards the business goals.
Equally some small businesses realise they don’t require a full-time marketer or can afford the time or investment in having their very own marketing person or department. This can typically lead to a better alternative and that is to outsource some or all of your business marketing activities to a Digital Marketing Agency and partner up with them to become YourMarketingDept.Online.
2. Generating Leads
It’s a tale as old as time itself, okay maybe not but it’s still the most common complaint we get from customers to this day! “I don’t have enough leads”, “I need more leads” and “I’m struggling to get more leads” are only a few phrases we hear from small businesses. According to the same Hubspot survey, 27% of marketers across industries believe that generating leads will be their biggest challenge this year. With a higher emphasis on privacy and companies like Apple allowing users to block tracking on their devices, generating leads the way we’ve been finessing it for years, will mean that we need to rethink our marketing strategies.
The solution
This doesn’t mean that generating new leads this way is impossible, it just means that we have to think differently and look into other means to do this as well. When it comes to content marketing, for example, marketers will need to ask themselves 2 questions; “Is the content we’re putting out high-quality, the type that you’d expect to pay for?” and “Is this what our audience wants?”. With a higher emphasis on content being valuable for a target audience, content marketing should be extremely niched down, target pain points and educate. If your audience typically prefers video on social media, why target them with an email campaign? If you have a great CRM database, why not leverage it, segment by persona/interest/other attributes, for email marketing and nurturing, or use it for ore targeted paid ads campaigns, rather than fall for the let’s get new contacts only challenge – it’s easier to target and sell to existing customers and contacts that are more aware of your brand than to new contacts/customers that don’t know, like and trust you yet. It takes 7 times more effort/cost to sell to new customers versus existing ones!
The rules of the marketing game continue to evolve; powerful Revenue Growth Single-End-to-End Martech stacks are now available, such as SharpSpring, GDPR has changed how and who we market to, Apple blocking of tracking creates its own downsides to marketing… none of these should prevent marketing success and reaching your business goals. Marketers are creative in finding solutions to problems and realise it has become more important to focus on things they can control, as one thing hasn’t changed and that’s how important First-Party data is and continues to become for lead-generation. First-party data is information a company collects directly from its customers and owns. In other words, all information about customers from both online and offline sources, such as the company’s website, Mobile App, CRM, social media or surveys is first-party data. By using First-party data, you can deliver your prospects and customers personalised experiences via email, social media, SMS, display them relevant ads and so much more…start leveraging the power of CRM and build your first-party data and use this in your marketing activities, it will make a huge difference. You can even start doing this with Hubspot’s FREE CRM.
3. Managing Your Website
In 2021, 64% of companies said they were investing in website upgrades. According to Hubspot’s survey, 27% of marketers said that managing their website would be their biggest challenge this year. This isn’t surprising as websites act as huge shop windows for your business and serve as a key place that customers will visit to research your brand. Performance of your website may be high up on your priority list, especially as organic search results can often drive more customers your way.
SEO comes into play here and it can be difficult keeping up to date with how Google ranks your website in their search engine. The process is constantly being changed and so SEO must be carried out constantly to remain up to date with current website ranking systems. This presents a huge issue for smaller marketing teams as they struggle to cope with the workload and can often get left behind in a fast-paced industry.
The solution
Another short-term solution for marketing departments with some budget is to hire freelancers. Freelancers may cost you but they make up for it in the specialised skills they bring to the table and the amount of time they save you from having to build up the skills yourself. Alternatively seek the advice of a professional digital marketing agency, that way you don’t have eggs all in one basket with any single freelancer. An agency might more expensive, but cheap isn’t always the answer to what is a fundamental part of our marketing foundation. If you’re serious about having a great website that can organically reach your target audience and convert them into customers, these options are worth considering.
If you’re not an expert in SEO and don’t have the time to learn how to be one, we recommend you check out this free website grading tool from Hubspot that will let you know exactly what areas your website is lacking in. That way you use your time more efficiently to work on areas of your website that need attention. It’s not 100% perfect, but it’s a great start, especially if you don’t have the time or overall knowledge to extensively review your website.
If generating more leads, maintaining your website, or even streamlining marketing and sales processes are still an issue for you, why not contact Autus? As industry-leading experts in CRM, marketing automation & strategy, sales process optimisation, and digital marketing – we can help take your business to the next level in your journey of growth!
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About Autus
Autus provide Revenue Growth Platforms, Marketing & Sales Automation and Digital Marketing services to help sales and marketing personnel and teams build efficient and effective sales and marketing best practices and automate their marketing and sales processes by leveraging personalised content, various digital marketing tactics, segmentation and behaviour of their prospects and customers.
Autus recommend various products for automation, such as Active Campaign, Hubspot, Mailchimp and SharpSpring…it will vary on your requirements and budget the best option for your business.
Find out more here.
Our founder, Tom Berry, also provides selective fractional CMO services and is a member of some client boards.
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If our team at Autus can help advise further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our founder, Tom Berry.
