Top Challenges for Small Businesses-Part 1

How do you describe a small business?  If yours is a small business, then you probably know about the challenges a small business faces, most of which are never a problem for big enterprises.

If you go by the annual statistics, more than half of small businesses have an online presence. But the percentage of small businesses that have an effective online presence is very less.

With not many things being in favor of small businesses, small businesses often tend to fail. With the ever-evolving technological world, the challenges that a small business faces also tend to change.

Here are some challenges that small businesses face:

Measuring Marketing Efforts

Social media is the most feasible option for small businesses as it hardly requires any investment or efforts. Create your business account on social media channels and you have many options to explore.

When talking specifically about small businesses, half the SMEs claim that they are unable to measure ROI from their marketing efforts and social media campaigns. This is one of the biggest challenges because until and unless you are able to evaluate the effectiveness of various marketing campaigns, you can never know which marketing tactic turned out to be successful for your business.

Social media is a marketing tool that every business must use. Even small businesses make their business accounts on every single platform without realizing which social media channel is actually perfect for their type of business. Therefore, it is also important to align the social media platform with the nature of your business.

Cybersecurity

Security has been and will always be a primary concern for businesses. The situation is almost the same for an enterprise or a small business website. With hackers using the Internet as their playground, it is necessary for businesses to secure devices that are used in and by organizations.

Small businesses do have this notion that only giant corporates are the favorite spot for hackers. Well, this is not the case, even small businesses can be a target of one or the other security threat, the common one being snooping.

Speaking of security vulnerabilities, the hackers do not discriminate amongst an enterprise or an SME. A single loophole in the technical or security domain can lead to serious trouble for a small business and the business owner. This is one of the common problems encountered by small business owners. This is where a big enterprise has an edge over the small business since they hire security specialists who are constantly monitoring every activity on the company’s database.

Investment and budget

The biggest challenge faced by small businesses is lack of budget/budget constraint. With so many domains to address, it becomes difficult for a business to manage the limited funds. Many small businesses do make a marketing plan, involving the distribution of budget, but are not always able to abide by the strategy.

As for small businesses, it is difficult to get a sponsor due to the higher number of risks involved. Thus, investors are never willing to invest capital in SMEs. With many domains requiring investment, some tasks often remain unattended due to budget constraint. For SMEs, it is important that they find a way to assert a sponsor of a confirmed profit.

Generate website traffic

A business having an online presence is always eager to have excellent website traffic. This calls for ways and procedures that can attract visitors to your website. There are various ways, ranging from content marketing to social media marketing, a small business can expect to get a good organic reach.

But with loads of content uploaded on the internet every single minute, it is quite possible that your content might not be able to make a mark online. Being proactive on discussion forums where you can build your brand value by conversing with the audience is one way to generate traffic. At times, a small business is able to get a presence but is unable to get the website traffic they desire. Rigorous research and study can help you know which marketing strategy is attracting visitors to your business.

Keep up with video content

Video content is turning the marketing world around! A video grabs a user attention instantly, which creates a spike in the traffic graph. But not all small businesses can initiate video marketing. They could plan out their budget to give the video a try and see the results.  

Businesses are using it to project their brand expertise in the market. Creating a video is not an easy task. In fact, it requires ample time and efforts. To give a live demonstration of your business & its services to the audience and have them actively engage with your brand, the video is the best option available.

Increasing sales & revenue

The basic difference between a big enterprise and a small business is the ways and methods of generating revenue.

Big enterprises use every possible method of marketing, be it their paid services or their products. On the other hand, SMEs often depend on the leads from social media channels and through other channels of marketing. The revenue that a small business is able to generate is quite less as compared to the big enterprises.

Correct analytics

Analyzing is a very important aspect of a business. A small business having a budget constraint often end up getting free tools like Google analytics. Similarly, there are analytical tools offered by the social media channels, like Twitter analytics, that give precise information on the social media activity. Similarly for Facebook, wherein one can check the insights for every post on Facebook.

Analytical tools like Sprout social is a paid service. However, with the advancement in the technological domain, there are many tools available online which help get an accurate analysis of the business.

With every passing day, the competition will increase and so will the problems that SMEs are facing. Hence, it becomes important for your small businesses to address these problems and find appropriate solutions for them!

We hope you got a brief insight into the common problems and challenges that small businesses face. If you think we missed out on something, let us know in the comments below!

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