Faced with an ever changing environment, and a wider remit of job responsibilities, todays marketers face a whole host of challenges. Marketing as a function has more responsibility than ever – to guide a business towards growth in the face of uncertain times.
In this article, we consider what challenges are being faced by today’s marketer, and what can be done to overcome them.
1) Demonstrating ROI
It’s the question that is the bane of every marketers existence and one that is continually asked regardless, by those who don’t understand the added value marketing can have on a business. What works for one business might be the complete wrong strategy for another.
Yes, seeing a return on your investment is the aim of the game but proving and communicating the ROI of marketing activities can be extremely difficult. Marketers must speak the same language as the board and try wherever they can to bring numbers to the table that demonstrate exactly what marketing is delivering to the business. Communicating how much pipeline marketing brings to the business, and how your campaigns have contributed to business growth will go along way to help further substantiate the investment made into marketing, but gathering the best data and sharing this in an effective way is undoubtedly an obstacle for many marketers.
It can be difficult for marketers at any level to prove the impact of their activities, so learn how to develop a metric-orientated approach and show measurable outcomes for your marketing strategies and tactics.
2) Lack of fundamental marketing knowledge
With the rise of marketing specialisms and non-linear career paths, recent research conducted by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) found that marketers in junior roles generally lack knowledge of core marketing principals but have much more enhanced technical and digital knowledge than seasoned practitioners. Addressing the shortage of core marketing knowledge is a challenge for marketers today more than ever and emphasises on businesses the importance of employing the right recruit.
Furthermore, marketing’s widened remit, with a focus on customer experience, data, digital and sales, has blurred the lines between departments and organisational structures. With non-marketing focused departments often being those that directly interact with the customer, and controlling key marketing channels, it is an increasing challenge for marketing to have an input across all departments within the business to fulfil its remit.
3) Understanding customer behaviour
Research from CIM has found that consumer trust is decreasing year by year. A survey of consumers found that four in ten don’t trust any organisations to use their data responsibly, even after the arrival of the General Data Protection Regulations. Whilst this is an industry-wide issue, some sectors are affected more than others, with even more people (not trusting social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter with their personal data.
A decline in brand loyalty has also put marketers under strain. Consumers in both the B2B and B2C world are now led by choice, experience and price, spelling trouble for marketers who cannot deliver all three. With marketers increasingly tasked with interpreting and predicting consumer behaviour, keeping a finger on the pulse of changing customer trends and expectations has always been a priority – but anticipating these in a fast-changing world is harder than ever.
Understanding these new and emerging behavioural patterns is crucial to marketing success, so learn more about how to engage, acquire and retain your customers.
4) Keeping up-to-date with digital
In a world where digital tech companies like Google and Facebook are forever changing their algorithms to provide an ever better user experience, business are struggling to keep up to pace with the constant change.
You will never be ahead of the game but to keep pace, organisations must evaluate what skills and technologies are required to reach, engage and add value to your customer, with the ultimate goal to deliver growth and stay relevant.
From our experience of working with family and owner managed businesses, there are undoubtedly skills gaps in analytics and content marketing across all seniority levels and industries. Furthermore, we have found that those in senior roles within the business lacked working knowledge of SEO, social media and programmatic advertising, posing questions for how effectively strategies would incorporate these key channels for marketers.
Whilst these skills gaps may not be surprising to many, to have a good online presence this again highlights the importance of recruiting a marketer that has expertise in SEO, Content Writing, Social Media and Email Marketing.
5) The changing role of product management
Marketers across the industry know that the customer journey has changed significantly over the last decade, but this has caused a particular challenge for product management, which sits at the centre of customer experience, technology and business growth. In many organisations, product management has moved to a solution-based approach, with product lifecycles changing all the time.
Product management has evolved into a crucial competitive advantage for organisations, but in a time of industry-wide disruption, product marketers must ensure they can align maximising the implementation of their products with a clear strategic vision. More than ever, it is the job of project management to lead their organisation with new product development and compelling value propositions that meet rising customer expectations.
Why Simple Marketing Consultancy?
Our business model is to act as the retained marketing manager for family or owner manager businesses that either don’t need a full time marketer or aren’t quite yet able to afford a full time marketer.
To give a brief overview, below you will find examples of how we help businesses with their marketing.
- Advising companies wanting to increase sales
- Companies wanting to re-brand or launch new products/services
- Help drafting copy and liaising with designers for new websites sales
- Companies wanting to increase profile using PR and social media
- Providing advice on internal and external communications using email marketing & direct mail
- Companies celebrating anniversaries Event management – golf days, seminars, open days etc Managing the recruitment process to appoint marketers to in-house roles
If you have a potential marketing project to discuss, and want the advice of a qualified marketer, please email Elliot@simplemarketingconsultancy.co.uk or 07817229917.