Partner Article

Small Businesses Struggle to Hit the Right Targets.

Every business manager knows that success or failure is linked in no small way to the strength of their marketing. You can have the best product, service, or website in the world, but it’s worthless if you can’t reach your prospective customers. It’s unfortunate then, that a recent survey by PeoplePerHour Enterprise Solutions (PPH Enterprise) should reveal that 26 per cent of businesses struggle in this vital area.

The survey, which took in the views of 1,100 British small business owners, asked respondents which areas of marketing they found particularly troublesome. While 23% said they were finding it ‘almost impossible’ to find a marketing director to cover all skills, others were able to pinpoint problematic areas. Businesses admitted to struggling with:

• PPC – Low click-through rates are easily monitored, but can be difficult to rectify - 41%
• SEO – with Google changing the way that it ranks websites many businesses have been left in confusion - 37%
• Social media marketing – it is widely acknowledge that a strong social media presence - 27% has a positive effect on both brand awareness and profitability
• Email marketing – avoiding the SPAM folder is notoriously difficult - 34%
• Telesales – finding ways to engage customers without irritating them can be problematic - 22%
• Content marketing – Finding fresh means to call customers back to your website can be difficult. - 18%

More specifically, 64% percent said that measuring ROI (return on investment) was particularly challenging, while 48% said that they found it difficult to define their target audience. Keeping up with current trends proved awkward for 30 per cent of respondents, while nearly a quarter (23%) thought that hiring the right people to take care of marketing duties was their biggest issue.

Such are the difficulties that businesses are facing that two in ten (21%) small business owners admitted to having no clear marketing plan for the next quarter.

As it’s revealed small businesses have spent more on marketing in the past year and it would seem many (12%) have budgeted 15% of their revenue for marketing for the next 12 months despite more than one in ten small businesses struggling to recruit for marketing roles.

Xenios Thrasyvoulou, PeoplePerHour Founder & CEO comments: ‘Marketing plays a really important role in business – it’s not just about reaching customers, but reaching the right customers and creating a brand story that the public can buy into and identify.

‘Having an amazing product or service is really only the very first step in building a successful business, the important part is letting the world know about it. When you’re starting out it can be tempting to put marketing on the backburner, but if you do, I guarantee that you’ll regret it. The trick is to target your marketing; find a way to reach your customer base. And embrace hyperspecialists for each marketing role. It’s almost impossible to find one marketer who can effectively perform for each marketing channel, so build a team of experts in their own particular field and you’ll have a dynamic and effective marketing team.’

Recently launched, PeoplePerHour Enterprise Solutions now allow businesses to hand over all of their outsourcing needs to a single account manager, who will match up projects to the best qualified talent, monitor deadlines and handle invoices. A single monthly invoice for all completed work will be presented – PeoplePerHour will manage the distribution of funds to individuals, removing an unnecessary layer of complication from company bookkeeping.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Xenios Thrasyvoulou .