| What are the top three problems with SMEs that kill growth? SMEs struggle with marketing due to three factors: a lack of time, limited budgets, and a shortage of in-house expertise. Our strategic approach turns these obstacles into growth opportunities. |
You’re an ambitious founder. You want your business to grow and improve revenue.
I get it.
However, marketing often feels like a wall. Many growing businesses hit this obstacle. They struggle to get seen and sell more.
In this article, I explore the core reasons why 90% of SMEs fail and how to solve these challenges:
- Lack of time
- Limited budgets
- Insufficient expertise that hinders effective marketing for your SME
You should adopt a strategic approach to transform these three problems that hinder SMEs’ progress. This enables you to turn them into growth opportunities.
GroXcelent empowers small businesses like yours to tackle these exact roadblocks head-on. (More on this later).
Why Is a Lack of Time the Biggest Marketing Challenge for SMEs?
TL;DR: Most SMEs lack time for marketing due to daily operations. This leads to inconsistent efforts and missed opportunities.
You face a constant battle for your time.
Daily operations demand your attention. Sales calls, customer appointments, and project management fill your day.
“Limited resources and tight marketing budgets: Most SMEs and content creators cannot afford large-scale ad campaigns or professional marketing teams. As a result, they often wear multiple hats — taking on roles in planning, design, social media management, and ad placement themselves. This lack of resources leads to limited reach and unstable results.” Fox40.com |
As a result, you push marketing tasks aside. This is a common problem.
65% of business owners cite time constraints as their biggest marketing challenge.
You wear many hats and handle everything. Consistent marketing efforts become an uphill battle.
And this is what happens:
- It leads to missed opportunities.
- Your brand presence becomes inconsistent.
- Your competitors move ahead.
- You also hurt your bottom line.
Daily operations consume your time. They make consistent marketing efforts an uphill battle, leading to missed opportunities.
How Do Limited Marketing Budgets Hinder SME Growth?
TL;DR: Limited budgets make it hard to achieve a significant impact. Many SMEs underinvest and waste money on unstrategic efforts.
Your budget is tight, so every expense needs justification.
Marketing investment feels risky. 54% of business owners in the UK point to limited budgets as a major hurdle.
It’s the same picture in South Africa. Only 9% of SMEs received funding in 2020 (McKinsey).
As a result, many SMEs spend little on marketing.
And yet, some large businesses use about 14% of their revenue towards digital marketing efforts. (Wordstream)
Making a significant impact on your business goals is a tall order.
You face a challenge because investing effectively with scarce funds is tough.
Money gets wasted. This happens without a clear strategy; it’s a trial-and-error marketing approach.
So you need every dollar to work hard.
You must invest wisely and track results on every dollar. This is because limited budgets slow down your marketing.
How Much Should You Spend on Marketing?
It depends.
Several factors determine your marketing budget:
Return on investment (ROI):
- The faster you want to see your ROI, the higher your marketing budget in the short term.
- This is because you must invest in paid search, like Google and Facebook ads, for quick results.
- Inbound marketing tactics like SEO/GEO, content marketing, and social are more cost-effective but with long-term outcomes.
Sales cycle:
- The longer your sales cycle, especially in B2B, the more resources you should commit to marketing.
Competition in your industry:
- Competitive industries require more budget allocations to capture demand.
- As a result, the cost per click (CPC) on ads is higher. This makes advertising expensive.
How much you spend on marketing depends on your goals, sales cycle, ROI, and competition.
Some B2B allocate between 2% and 5% of their revenue. B2C spends 5-10%. These are just general guidelines.
Keep in mind these issues as you consider your budget:
Under-investing in marketing:
- Leads to reduced brand visibility and awareness.
- Makes it challenging for your business to attract new customers.
- Results in missed opportunities to engage with your target audience. It affects your sales and growth.
- Competitors with higher marketing investments may capture a larger market share. This puts your small and medium-sized business at a disadvantage.
Do You Need a Marketing Expert To Succeed?
TL;DR: Most SMEs lack in-house marketing expertise. This results in no formal strategy and a failure to adapt to a complex digital world.
You manage marketing in-house. And you often do it yourself. This creates an expertise gap.
Nearly two-thirds of SMEs manage marketing this way. This is due to a lack of entrepreneurial leadership skills (SAJESBM.)
This approach lacks a formal strategy. Only 46% of businesses have one. 20% admit they have no idea what works.
That’s because it’s a difficult task to plan for every marketing role by yourself.
And knowing what works and what doesn’t becomes a huge challenge. You try to be a jack-of-all-trades in marketing.
Digital marketing is complex, as it requires specialized knowledge.
AI SEO/GEO, content marketing, digital PR, and PPC demand various skills.
A marketing team must include:
- An SEO/GEO specialist is responsible for optimizing your website for search engines and users.
- The AI content marketing expert is in charge of overseeing content strategy, creation, distribution, and performance.
- A marketing analyst handles data analysis to ensure SEO aligns with business goals.
- An AI marketing specialist helps your business adopt the right technologies.
- The creative expert is responsible for videos and graphics.
- A paid search professional runs effective campaigns to promote your business.
- And more.
Marketing is not a single skill set. And I have worked for top-notch marketing agencies.
No one marketer performed all the above roles. It was always teamwork, with each professional focusing on a specific responsibility.
Ever seen a job ad with disconnected roles like this?
Trying to perform all marketing activities by yourself or hiring one person for these roles causes burnout and failure.
Why Outsourcing Wins
My agency splits these tasks across specialists (e.g., SEO/GEO, Creatives, Marketing Analyst & Paid Specialist).
One person doing all results in mediocre performance.
What’s more! AI has upended how people search online. It has changed online marketing forever.
49% of the population in the United States uses generative AI (Salesforce). ChatGPT is No. 5 as an AI search engine with over 5 billion visits.
This presents challenges and opportunities for SMEs.
Without specific expertise to navigate the changing marketing environment, your efforts fall short.
What Is the Solution To Your Marketing Challenges?
TL;DR: Outsourcing to a specialized agency addresses the core issues of time, budget, and expertise. This approach turns your marketing into a strategic lever for growth.
You can transform these marketing obstacles. Shift your mindset and approach to digital marketing.
“..low-cost digital marketing techniques, such as organic reach strategies, can help maximise their [your] limited budgets, ” Shoprite Group SMME Report. |
Treat online marketing as a strategic lever for growth.
Don’t view it as a reactive fix or as a to-do list. It should be part and parcel of your business planning.
Consider a specialized agency. Outsourcing a digital marketing partner can directly address your limitations.
And the numbers from a Xerox survey on outsourcing benefits speak for themselves:
- 89 percent of companies say outsourcing enables them to concentrate on their core operations.
- 84 percent say outsourcing brings in new expertise.
- 59 percent of businesses report that outsourcing reduces their costs.
Benefits of outsourcing to a specialized agency.
- Time Savings: An agency frees your time. You focus on core business operations.
- Cost Efficiency: Access senior expertise. Pay less than an in-house hire.
- Specialized Expertise: Work with a dedicated team. They possess certified skills across all marketing areas.
How To Jumpstart Your SME Marketing With Predictable Growth
TL;DR: GroXcelent offers a unique approach to predictable growth. It delivers a custom 6-month roadmap, a budget-friendly hybrid team, and AI-powered strategies.
We provide predictable retainers customized to your business needs and budget.
For example, we take your company through a 6+ month roadmap.
It involves:
- Months 1-2: Audit, align, technical foundation, and content creation.
- Months 3-5: Early visibility on AI and traditional search engines and lead generation.
- Months 6+: Scaling profitable channels and strategy review and adjustments.
This ensures consistent, long-term growth.
Our hybrid team model includes seasoned South African + Asian marketers. It maximizes your revenue since it’s budget-friendly.
And it delivers global expertise at 60% less than in-house teams.
You reap huge savings on costs while you benefit from tried and tested marketing approaches.
And our AI-powered strategies deliver superior results. They provide speed.
You don’t have to scratch your head about new technologies for your business.
GroXcelent pricing includes the latest software. We’ve done the legwork for you.
Also, we use proven frameworks and deliver tangible outcomes. We focus on your revenue.
FAQs on Top Challenges for Small Businesses
| What are the three major problems that small and medium enterprises encounter? Time, budgets, and a lack of marketing skills. How do you overcome challenges that SMEs experience? Partner with a digital marketing agency to save on costs, maximize your time, and access seasoned marketers. GroXcelent offers affordable AI SEO, content, social media, digital PR, email, and paid search strategies. How does poor marketing lead to business failure? You can’t reach your target audience. Your product or service remains unknown. This means no sales or growth. |
How To Turn Obstacles Into Opportunities
You don’t need to struggle. Your marketing challenges are solvable.
Partner with GroXcelent, an SME Growth Agency for ambitious start-ups and growing SMEs.
You can conquer your marketing challenges and dominate your niche when you partner with a specialized agency. It provides expertise and a proven strategic roadmap.
Build your powerful marketing foundation to accelerate your revenue today!
