Marketing challenges faced by Small Business to Medium Sized Enterprises

With uncertainty in the US economy and fear of recession, SMBs to Medium sized Enterprises continue to face headwinds in terms of growing revenue, marketing budget - allocating a percentage of their revenue to marketing, generating leads and customer acquisition. 

Key strategies and best practices to consider to ensure you are able drive down the cost of customer acquisition (CAC). 

1.0 Choose high return marketing channel 

Direct mail, Email, Social Media - LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok continue to be important channels. 

Social media platforms allow one to engage with their audiences in real-time and reach a large base of potential customers. 

Know your audience. Allows you to pick the right channel to meet them where they are.

Audience analysis and selection can be done using AI/ML techniques. Work with a team who has expertise in this space. 

2.0 Implement best practices for Search Engine Optimization 

Driving organic traffic to your digital properties continues to be very important especially for SMB’s and Enterprises who are on a very tight budget. 

With the advent of Generative AI, Google and Bing’s search algorithms continue to evolve. To be relevant requires understanding of these algorithms, continuous experimentation and implementation of best practices. 

Partnering with a team, who uses AI tools would be advisable. 

3.0 Email Marketing 

Email as a marketing channel is very cost effective. Emails can be personalized based on customer segments and campaigns. 

AI must be used to create personalized subject lines, email copy, images, content based on individual preferences. 

Use an email marketing platform that allows one to provide customer segments and use of AI to make sure you get high email open rates and click through rates. 

4.0 Content creation 

Creating original content - blogs, short videos, white papers, case studies, podcasts, hosting webinars is important to build brand awareness and stay relevant to your potential customers. 

There are a plethora of AI tools that create content. Identifying what content to create, which channel to publish that will yield the highest ROI continues to be a huge challenge. 

Identifying your target audience, creating content that matches their preferences, publishing content through marketing channels at the right frequency is a challenge that can be solved by partnering with the right team. 

5.0 Invest in Data Quality, Privacy & Trust 

Direct mail volumes continue to decline year over year, they continue to be relevant. Survey published by Taradel suggests that SMBs, Medium sized enterprises will continue to use Direct mail and digital marketing channels. Certain verticals like Real-Estate continue to show positive ROI. 

Lists you purchase should be of highest data quality, adherent to each state level consumer privacy laws and compliance. 

Work with a team uses AI/ML techniques for Data Quality, following best practices around privacy and compliance. 

Conclusion 

Surveys suggest that SMB’s and Medium sized Enterprises will continue to invest in Marketing in 2024, but will want increased return on their spend.  Highly recommend to partner with a team that is an expert in  marketing, data and AI/ML. 

In 2008, I joined Netflix as a 9th Engineer on the Streaming Platform team. Being part of the team that led growth from 100,000 subscribers to 50+, launched the service globally. Netflix continues to be a role model in terms of investing in data, algorithms and AI/ML. 

I have worked in Enterprises (B2B) and I learned the art of how to apply Data, AI/ML for B2B companies like B2C and drive scale. 

Want to bring the same scale to SMB’s and Medium sized Enterprises. Hope you find these strategies useful. Feel free to message me or follow me on LinkedIn. I will continue to publish my learnings and insights.