5 Major Challenges Marketers Face (And How to Solve Them)

by Sarah Goliger

November 13, 2012 at 2:00 PM 217 inShare

Every marketer faces different challenges. Although we typically share similar goals, some marketers are stuck on lead generation , while others are having trouble converting leads into customers, and some just arent generating the traffic to their site they need in the first place. Not to mention all the individual parts of a solid marketing strategy where you might be falling short -- maybe its content creation, search engine optimization, or finally figuring out how to actually attract customers from Facebook . Whatever it is, theres always at least one area that any marketer can stand to improve. And hey -- thats great! Why? Well, it means theres always room to optimize the various

components of your strategy and turn your marketing into an even moreeffective revenue generator.

So ... What's Your Biggest Marketing Opportunity?

To help you figure out where your greatest potential for improvement lies, HubSpot has created a super quick 3-question quiz called Whats Your Biggest Marketing Opportunity? Just answer a few simple questions, and well tell you exactly where you should focus your efforts to make your marketing more effective. Well even provide you with a customized marketing plan based on your results , to help you get started! Curious about what kinds of obstacles other marketers are up against? We took a look at the responses we capture from HubSpot's own lead-capture forms -- where we give marketers the option of identifying their biggest marketing challenge -- and analyzed their results. Here are some of the most common challenges marketers have told us they face ... and their solutions.

5 Top Challenges Marketers Face

1) Generating Awareness and Driving Traffic
Why It's a Challenge: Before you can start generating leads for your sales team to convert into customers, you have to actually get the attention of your audience and get people interested in your business, product, or service. Many marketers face the challenge of not having a large enough volume of interested prospects, while some others just don't know which channels they should focus their efforts on for the highest return. Solution: In order to attract a higher volume of interested prospects, you need to generate more awareness through the various channels you have available to you. Are you on the right social networks ? (The right ones are the ones where your audience is.) Do you have a business blog? Are you creating educational content to provide value to

your readers, whether it be to help them solve a problem or teach them more about your industry? Use these tools to widen the top of your marketing funnel, and spread awareness about your business. Then, you can use analytics to determine which channels are performing best , and focus your efforts around those.

2) Targeting Effectively
Why It's a Challenge: Targeting is a key component of all aspects of marketing. To be more effective at targeting, o ne of the first things any marketer needs do isidentify their buyer personas to determine who it is they should be marketing to. Lets face it -- in order for someone to even consider listening to your message or reading your content, it has to offer some sort of value to them. It needs to fulfill a need or desire of theirs, probably to learn or understand something about your industry or alleviate a problem that your product aims to solve. And most importantly, you must make sure that your message and the value you're providing are as relevant to your audience as possible. It's not easy to pull this kind of alignment off. Solution: First, develop a detailed picture of your target audience. The best way to understand your audience is to build buyer personas with these 3 steps: segment by demographics, identify their needs, and develop behavior-based profiles. Once you have established your buyer personas, determine what each one is looking for and how you can provide value to that persona. Segmenting your audience appropriately will allow you to target your content more closely to make your message relevant to every individual lead. We've written a detailed blog post and developed a free template to help you research and create detailed buyer personas. Check 'em out!

3) Using Social Media to Generate Customers and Revenue

Why It's a Challenge: Social media was once a shiny new toy. But at first, many businesses hardly knew what to do in social media. They just knew they needed to be using it. That has all changed. Now most companies know there is real business value in social media marketing, but they don't know how to convert social engagement into dollars. It isn't enough to simply have a presence on social media -- there is a science to

targeting, engaging, and nurturing with social networks that will allow you to build up a social following that you can use as a quality source of leads for your business. Solution: The future of social media marketing lies in the intelligent management of your social leads: the ability to recognize influencers, segment groups of users based on their social activity and interests, and properly time and manage appropriate followup communication. The best way to boost sales with social media is to provide your sales team with social media lead intelligence -- information about a lead's behavior and interaction with your company in social networks. This intelligence will allow a sales rep to begin the conversation with specific, tailored information about that person's activity. For example, "Hi John, Thanks for sharing our latest ebook on Twitter! We really appreciate the support. Did you enjoy the read? Do you have any questions about it that I could help clarify?" Such extreme personalization allows Sales to connect much better with your leads, and convert more of them into customers by beginning the conversation with information that is relevant to them. To learn more about how to segment and nurture your social media contacts, download our free ebook, The Future of Social Media Lead Management .

4) Keeping Up With Marketing Trends and Strategies

Why It's a Challenge: Marketing has gone through many transformations , especially in the last decade. Our marketing focus has shifted from print media to online media, and we have witnessed the decline of direct mail and cold calling. Why? Because technology has introduced new tools that make our communication with potential customers more efficient and effective. Social media has risen as a dominant platform for two-way communication and feedback collection. These are only a few of the recent changes marketing has gone through, and every day, we're seeing more and more changes -- new technologies pop up, different strategies are developed, new trends emerge. So how do you stay current? Solution: The key to effective marketing is knowing where your audience is, how to provide value to them, and what the best tools and methods are for doing so. Invest some time into reading about the latest developments in the industry from high-authority

marketing blogs. Grab some of the free educational content that's out there (HubSpot has an entire library of free resources ), and learn more about a component of your marketing that could use some strengthening. And make sure you keep up with the best tools for making your marketing more effective.

5) Increasing and Proving ROI

Why It's a Challenge: With more and more advanced analytics tools available, marketers are being held to a higher standard. It's no longer enough to simply do marketing -- you must be able to measure and understand the value of each of your efforts in terms of leads, customers, and revenue. You need to prove that your return on investment is high enough to warrant that effort, time, and money. Solution: Effective marketers should be able to tie every single lead, customer, and dollar back to the marketing initiative that created them. T his is how marketers can prove their worth, and understand how to more efficiently reach their audience. Closedloop marketing cuts through the widespread vagueness of marketing myths and assumptions and reveals real data about the success (or failure) of your marketing efforts. Use advanced marketing analytics to track which marketing activities are generating leads, customers, and revenue. Then double down on whats working, and cut out whats not.

Top Challenges for B2B vs. B2C

Those were 5 of the top challenges faced by marketers overall. However, we also broke down our analysis into the top challenges faced by B2B vs. B2C companies. Let's take a look at how these segments compare.

According to our analysis, the top 5 B2B marketing challenges are:

1. Awareness/traffic (22.5%) 2. Lead generation (16.2%)

3. Social media (6.3%) 4. Targeting (5.4%) 5. Branding/brand recognition (4.5%)

And the top 5 B2C marketing challenges are:

1. Awareness/traffic (19.6%) 2. Social media (17.9%) 3. Targeting (10.7%) 4. Budget (8%) 5. Lead generation (8%) Interestingly, the most common challenge across both segments is driving awareness and traffic. It seems that many marketers could benefit from starting with optimizing the top of the funnel to grow their reach.

We found that the top 10 challenges across both B2B and B2C companies are:
1. Awareness/traffic (22.5%) 2. Lead generation (16.2%) 3. Social media (6.3%) 4. Targeting (5.4%) 5. Branding/brand recognition (4.5%) 6. Converting leads to customers (3.6%) 7. Keeping up with marketing trends (3.6%) 8. Increasing/proving ROI (2.7%) 9. Content creation (1.8%)

10. Budget (1.8%) Heres a look at the breakdown for each of these by B2B, B2C, and overall:

Does your company face any of these challenges? A thorough analysis of your marketing strategy and its current performance will help you discover where your biggest marketing opportunity lies. This will allow you to focus on improving the areas that need the most attention, so you can start making your marketing far more effective.
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33820/5-Major-Challenges-Marketers-Face-And-How-toSolve-Them.aspx

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7 Marketing Management Problems That Tech Can Solve

Stephanie Miller | August 8, 2011 | 0 Comments inShare27

Integrated marketing management (IMM) - also known as marketing automation or enterprise marketing management - is a class of software presenting a major opportunity for companies to create better customer experiences, and do so more cost effectively. According to Gartner, by 2014, companies that develop an integrated marketing management strategy will deliver a 50 percent higher return on marketing investment (ROMI) than those that don't. Many marketers dream about true IMM - where both sides of marketing, the operations and the campaign management functions, are aligned, synchronized, and efficiently adding value to each other. That 50 percent lift in return that Gartner found is also pretty dreamy. Imagine your world where workflow alerts go beyond approvals, and combine with automated predictive modeling to identify opportunities for cross channel synergy. For example, highlighting customers where an SMS or social follow up to an email campaign can improve results. Imagine if your spend management analysis tracks the success of campaign deployments back to budgets and allows decisions on re-allocation, or the occasional double down, for each initiative. In practice, many marketers only invest in a point solution - email marketing or workflow or demand generation. This can be a great place to start, but its only that: a starting point. The real benefit and return comes from a truly integrated solution that includes both marketing operations - marketing resource management (MRM) - and multichannel campaign management (MCCM). The benefits are the kind that marketers salivate over: Synergy with richer analytics (including big data projects like audience profiling and social sentiment analysis) enables marketers to execute customer-centric strategies and improve overall marketing performance, reaching the right targets, at the right times, in the right places, with the right messages. Tighter channel execution as well as integration cuts through the clutter of digital marketing and gives marketers a precise overall view of their customer. One of our customers in the hospitality business uses IMM technology to identify their highest value customers not just by pure dollar spend, but by frequency of visit and influence on other bookings (e.g., bringing along friends and relations). That

intelligence powers customization of content, offer, and timing across multiple factors like customer habit and season. A better understanding of customers and greater channel visibility will lead to higher open rates and shorter response times for digital messaging like email, social, and SMS. Be sure to give technology a fighting chance to assist you with the big problems, not just the day-to-day messaging challenges. To get you beyond the point solutions and into the big leagues, make the case that true IMM technology will accelerate your marketing ROI. Dare to dream big. Consider some of these use cases for your business. Are you able to show meaningful optimization results today? Technology could make the difference. 1. Are you facing marketing pressure due to increased competition or feeling stretched too thin with the explosion of channels to interact with their customers/prospects? 2. Is your marketing team under more pressure to do more with less and show accountability across the whole marketing organization? 3. Can you tie results of marketing initiatives back to organizational goals and objectives? 4. Are you able to link marketing expenditures to specific marketing programs to deliver an accurate return on marketing investment (ROMI)? 5. Have you assigned a value to various forms of content, and link content development to campaign execution? 6. How often are there costly agency reworks or delayed campaigns due to manual approval processes or out-of-compliance risks? 7. Do you frequently find your marketing campaigns hindered by limited access to data across platforms or vendors? Tell me how you are handling campaign management and operations challenges today. If it's all on paper or managed in silos across a number of solutions, then you are leaving on the table a major opportunity to earn higher response, try cool new stuff, and have more fun. (*Source: Gartner report entitled Focus on Integrated (Rather Than Enterprise) Marketing Management , Kimberly Collins, Publication Date: 6 October 2010.)

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2099611/marketing-management-tech-solve

Chapter 2. MAJOR ISSUES FOR EFFECTIVE MARKET MANAGEMENT

The major issues which can have an impact on effective market management are listed here and summarized in this section. These are:

1. Appropriate control of assets; 2. Necessary powers and authority; 3. Effective agreements with market users; 4. Compliance with market rules, contracts and agreements; 5. Economic viability and sustainability; 6. Effective relationships with market users, service providers, government agencies and other markets; 7. Operational and managerial efficiency; 8. Effective decision-making structure; 9. Trained and disciplined staff; 10. Marketing confidence - Integrity of wholesalers; 11. Politics and finance. Appropriate control of assets Failure to clearly define ownership of assets and consequently the responsibility for maintenance and replacement of assets can lead to serious inefficiencies in market operation. Necessary powers and authority Marketing management requires sufficient powers and authority (delegated by the government) to effectively manage the market. These should include powers to determine the following:

rental fees and charges; minimum quantities; hours of operation; access to the market; traffic and parking controls; produce unloading, loading and stacking; produce movement; allocation procedures; ability to enter into contracts and agreements (e.g. for rental of space and for market cleaning).

In addition, adequate fines and penalties should be provided to ensure compliance with market rules and rental agreements. Effective agreements with market users To minimize misunderstandings and to ensure compliance with the requirements of the managing authority, considerable attention needs to be given to the development, implementation and compliance aspects of tenancy agreements with traders and other renters of market space. Compliance with market rules, contracts and agreements

Market rules and regulations should be impartially, fairly, but effectively enforced. Failure to do so can lead to congestion or confusion in the market as well as to poor hygiene and costly operations for most market users. Economic viability and sustainability The managing authority must develop a business plan, an annual work plan and an annual budget. The budget, based on the business and work plans, should ensure that income generated is sufficient to meet all operational costs, as well as to provide funds (in reserve) for long-term maintenance, capital replacement and reserves for staff benefits. Effective relationships with market users, service providers, government agencies and other markets Conflicts can arise unless there is a strong commitment by traders to the market and an understanding of what the managing authority is seeking to achieve (e.g. if changes or increased fees are proposed). Similarly, if a government agency has to approve the budget, loans or penalties there must be an understanding of why the proposals are made and the need for a timely decision. Also, as mentioned, a market is dependent for success on the efficient operations of other markets and market centres such as collection facilities and packinghouses. Effective consultation, representation and coordination arrangements thus need to be put in place by the managing authority with market users, service providers, transport operators, government agencies and other markets. Operational and managerial efficiency The management and staff of the managing authority must be committed to the operation of an efficient market. This will require that the market opens on time, that traffic and parking is controlled, that produce handling and movement is efficient, that space is used appropriately without interfering with the rights of others, that market cleaning and garbage disposal is carried out regularly (at least on a daily basis) and that facilities are maintained (e.g. toilets, drinking water, telephones, fax, e-mail and support facilities such as cold stores). Effective decision-making structure The board of directors of the managing authority must be capable of making decisions, which can be implemented. This requires an understanding of the objectives, programmes and plans of the organization. It requires effective understanding of the role of the market and the need for consultation and communication with market tenants, users and service providers, government agencies and other market managers. It requires having an efficient management and staff team. It requires each staff member to know his or her duties and how these are to be carried out. Staff need to know what should be referred to the board of directors for policy or decision. Also, it means that the board of directors must have the necessary facts for effective decision making. This will require a meeting agenda which provides for optimal decisions which can be taken in minimum time. An agenda for a board of directors meeting would normally include:

1. Managers report: A report on market operations highlighting problem areas and areas for decision or policy. It should advise of progress in the implementation of previous decisions. 2. Financial report: A report showing for the period (month or quarter), income and expenditure compared to budget and, as required, a profit and loss statement, annual accounts and any loan proposals or debt reports. The board may request a list of all payments in the month/period. 3. Capital expenditure: Proposals on new capital expenditure. 4. Market tenancies: A summary of the current situation, proposals for new tenancies, transfers, etc. 5. Market operations: Any matter which needs to be raised on market hours, market access, traffic, parking, produce handling, cleaning, etc. 6. Matters for policy/board decision: An agenda paper for each policy issue should be prepared to give details of:

the issue - why it needs to be considered; background - any information needed on the present policy, the problem identified, the legal position, the financial costs involved; the options available; recommendation by management - giving reasons for the option selected and possible consequences of the proposed decision.

The board of directors has a responsibility to ensure that management fully implement the programmes, plans and decisions of the board in a timely and cost effective manner. Trained and disciplined staff Market staff need to be well-trained in order to know what they are to do to meet the managing authoritys objectives and plans and to implement the boards decisions. Staff require supervision to ensure their approach is disciplined and structured. Financial accountability, conscientious attendance and impartiality, fairness and consistent firmness in ensuring that market rules are observed are all essential to efficient market operations. Market confidence - Integrity of wholesalers Growers who wish to supply produce to a market need to have confidence in the market and its integrity - especially as regards their transactions with wholesalers. Usually the managing authority is not directly responsible for ensuring compliance with government commercial law. However, it will be necessary to take some initiative if a wholesaler is reported as consistently failing to pay suppliers the right amounts of money or to pay on time. Any evidence that a particular wholesaler may be running into financial difficulties or even bankruptcy can affect the market and hence potential market revenue, including managing authority income.

Politics and finance Markets subject to political intervention in terms of staff placements, allocation of space to traders or to financial kickbacks inevitably become poorly managed and poorly supported by suppliers and buyers. Also, overly ambitious capital development programs requiring large funding from reserves or loans can result in an overcapitalized market not able to be sustained by income from rentals. Market expansion, which requires large capital investment, should be based on predetermined demand and a precommitment agreement with the expected users of the new facilities.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/X3680E/x3680e04.htm

7 Common Social Media Marketing Problems and Their Solutions

By Lee Odden Online Marketing, Other Events, Social Media

This post is part 2 on Social Media Marketing Best Practices from IMS Minneapolis. The first post featured Brad Smith from Best Buy who offered insights into their social media principles, guidelines and learnings. This post includes liveblog notes from the presentation given by Adam Singer of TopRank Online Marketing. Adam opened up noting that according to a research study by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, 14% of executives are unsure of social media, yet 70% expect to spend more. That set the stage for some of the common obstacles and barriers to social media adoption which he focused on in: 7 Common Social Media Problems and their Solutions. 1. Flying blind Many companies chase social media tactics with no idea about the who, what, when and where of the social web. Its essential that companies first develop a listening program to answer those W questions. Listening through social media monitoring is critical to understanding brand, competitors and key terms relevant to your audience on the social web. Without a smart listening effort,

companies miss key opportunities: marketing, customer service, sales, recruiting, partnering and public relations. 2. Unsure where it fits who owns social media? As companies develop their social media programs, responsibilities and resources need to be allocated and that leads to accountability and ownership. For successful social media adoption within organizations, its important to establish social media goals and responsibilities in different parts of the organization. As resources and accountability are identified, the different departments can work to cross pollinate efforts, and work together as a team. Doing so helps leverage combined efforts and from an implementation standpoint, avoids conflicting representation of the brand. 3. Inconsistent participation Companies need to be consistent with their social participation. Our clients at TopRank Marketing with the most successful blogs are those that post consistently. The solution to more consistent participation is to lead from the top, get executive buy-in. Establish goals and provide a feedback loop to contributors. As they grow, the community will provide feedback. Set aside resources, plan who will create content, monitor and engage. Tap passionate community members and activate them to be brand ambassadors. Create efficiencies through the repurposing of content. 4. Not individual or confident Believing that people will listen to and find value in what you really want to say requires confidence. Whether youre right or wrong might not matter as much as being passionate. Now, more than ever, is the time to show leadership and conviction when it comes to social participation and engagement. 5. Digitally unsavvy team Modern marketers need to understand social media. Companies dont do social, they are social. That means being savvy participants. Theres good reason for that. According to Social Technographics of Business Buyers from Forrester Research:

91% of business buyers read blogs, watching user generated video, participate in other social media 55% of decision-makers were in social networks 43% are creating media (blogs, uploading videos or articles, etc.)

If youre a B2B marketer and youre not using social technologies in your marketing, it means youre late. Josh Bernoff, Forrester.

The good news is that you can learn to be social media savvy through training, participation, listening and engagement. 6. Data paralysis Data should help drive decisions, but dont let it get in the way of creative ideas from your team. Adam relates the story of one of his clients, Joffreys Coffee where he recommended campaign changes based on his personal experience with the social web vs waiting for data to prove a concept. The result was a successful program by all accounts which is often cited as a social media marketing case study by others in the industry. 7. Lack of personalization Use real team members in your social media efforts. Dont use some faceless person behind Brand X. Forge relationships with others. Put others in the spotlight. Give to get and be focused on serving and being useful. Dont send in legal right away as an initial reaction to social dissension. Read the Streisand Effect for more on what happens when that backfires. Embrace personal brands, dont worry about them getting too popular because their allegiance is to the brand. In the end, companies can win on the social web by developing a strategy, experiment and iterate. And if you get lost, you can always get help.

http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/06/7-social-media-marketing-solutions/