All businesses owners, large or small, face challenges at some point in their career. And now that so many companies exist only online, without brick and mortar stores, digital marketing has become a huge part of owning and maintaining a successful business. From creating content to managing a budget and ensuring customer engagement, there are many aspects of digital marketing that can present challenges to both new and seasoned business owners alike. Here’s a list of 4 common digital marketing obstacles and ways to overcome them to guarantee your business will grow and flourish.

1. A small budget

Just because you have a small budget doesn’t mean your business is doomed to fail. Tons of successful companies started out with little to no capital- Sara Blakely started Spanx with only $5000. Spanx currently makes $250MM yearly.

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You can stretch your budget by breaking up your audience into segments and marketing to them individually; look at things like demographics and audience behavior and then break them up accordingly so that each category gets personalized marketing and you’re not wasting any time or money on marketing strategies that won’t benefit a particular audience.

If you have a little bit of extra money to allocate, consider spending it on paid social media advertising. Social media is a great way to build an audience and grow a brand without having to spend any money, but it can also be an incredibly lucrative place to generate leads if you figure out which platforms your audience uses the most and then target that audience with strategic advertising.

Sometimes all you need is some creativity and extra effort to overcome what you lack in funding. Just because you don’t have a ton of money to spend on marketing doesn’t mean you can’t compete with bigger businesses; you just have to think outside the box and figure out how to set your business apart.

2. Not enough time

Small business owners know that there’s never enough time in the day to accomplish everything that needs to get done, and if you’re struggling with the problem listed at the top of this post (a small budget) then chances are you don’t have the resources to hire a huge team of people to help you out. But that’s ok, because if you invest in the right automation software you don’t need to hire a team to help you accomplish your goals. Marketing automation can increase sales by over 14% when used purposefully.

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Hubspot and Marketo are known for creating awesome marketing campaigns that could save you hours every week as well as provide you with valuable data such as where your customers are at in the funnel, what content is most engaging, which ads receive the most clicks, etc.

3. Problems creating content

Many people believe that engaging content is the foundation of a good marketing strategy; without it, all your efforts to create a great website and an innovative product may all be for naught if no one ever lands on your site and stays long enough to see what you’re selling. That’s where a good content strategy comes into play; creating targeted content that’s relevant to your audience and that they want to see is a great way to attract the right people to your website who will want to browse it and see what you have to offer. If you have the budget to outsource your content creation that’s not a bad route to take; creating content consistently can take up a lot of time and energy that may be better spent elsewhere. But if outsourcing isn’t in your budget, just create as much quality content as your schedule allows and then promote the hell out of it!

Quality always trumps quantity when it comes to creating content. Once you’ve written some killer blog posts or produced a couple engaging videos, be sure to share them on social media. Consider incorporating automation here as well; there are plenty of tools available that you can use to schedule and promote social media posts.

You can also tease content by hinting at it in your email newsletter. Sending a weekly newsletter will ensure that your brand is always on your customers’ minds, and if you make sure you’re including content that they want to see and that is relevant (think- what problems are they having that you can help solve?) then chances are your ROI will be pretty good.

4. Managing your website

According to Hubspot, managing a website is the 4th biggest challenge for marketers. Designing a user-friendly website can be tricky if you don’t have a background in web design, ensuring it’s optimized for SEO can be an extremely time-consuming (and overwhelming) task, and figuring out what kind of content and where to post it can present it’s own world of challenges. But there are plenty of ways to overcome these hurdles; it just takes a little time (or money if you don’t have the time to invest).

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Start by analyzing your site’s SEO; this isn’t as hard as you might think. Plenty of SEO software sites offer free trials, like Moz and SEMRush. Plug your domain into their search bar and see how your site stacks up against your competition. Moz also has an incredibly informative blog that explains what all the acronyms mean and how you can use their data to improve your SEO- for free! Not sure which one to use? Check out this post!

Look at where your site is being hosted; WordPress and Squarespace both offer a ton of free (or cheap) plugins and templates to help you design your site stress-free. They also offer built in analytic data so that you can see how your website is performing and make any necessary changes. If your current host isn’t doing all this and more, it might be time to switch.

And always, if you have the budget to hire freelancers, it doesn’t hurt to do so. Hiring out for content creation can save you a ton of time and stress if writing isn’t you thing, and finding a great web design company could be the answer to all your design problems. Think about what takes up the most time and stresses you out the most, and put your money there. It’ll be worth it for your peace of mind in the end.

What marketing problems is your business struggling with? Have you found any innovative solutions? If you’re just starting out in the digital marketing world, be sure to check out this list of helpful terms and acronyms that are sure to get you started on the right foot.

feature image credit: 76degrees.io

image 1: Spanx.com

image 2: hubspot.com

image 3: moz.com