You started your enterprise because you had a good idea, and you know you can provide your customers with real value and genuine, life-changing solutions.
You spread the word, you posted it on social media and you launched your product or service with great fanfare, but after the initial buzz, business doesn’t pick up. In fact, it peters out in spite of all the effort you put into marketing your idea.
Why? Why does your target audience not believe in the value you can provide?
What are you doing wrong?
Marketing is often one of the biggest challenges for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). With limited funds and resources, there’s only so much you can do…right?
If you had a bigger budget, you can spread word of your product or service all across the floors and walls of MRT stations.
If you had more funds for marketing, you could use hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay famous celebrities to endorse your great idea, you could make high production ads, you could get first dibs on the eyeballs you need on social media.
That would solve all your marketing problems, wouldn’t it?
Not necessarily.
The truth is, without a clear strategy, no matter how much money you pump into a marketing campaign, your efforts can still fall flat.
Here are seven common marketing mistakes SMEs make and practical tips on how to avoid them.
1. They Don’t Have A Clear Target Customer
SMEs that try to market to “everyone” often discover (after wasting much time and resources) that they’re appealing to nobody. Why is that?
By attempting to appeal to everyone, a brand’s messaging becomes bland and generic, unable to stand out from their competition because it ultimately resonates with nobody.
Instead of throwing your product or service out into the wild and hope those who need it see it, narrow your focus to a specific audience, understanding their specific needs and desires, meet those needs with your product or service and build up customer loyalty from there.
Start by developing a detailed persona of your ideal customer. Be specific about the demographic, interests and pain points of this persona. The clearer your target audience is, the sharper your marketing efforts will be.
2. The Value They Provide Is Unclear
Talking about what you sell is easy—most SMEs do this well—but what customers want to know is why it matters to them. Instead of focusing on the features of a product or service in marketing campaigns, present its benefits to your audience.
When you align your company with the interests and needs of your audience, they will naturally gravitate to you for solutions to their problems. And that means purchasing your products and using your services.
So focus on informing, entertaining and adding value to your customers’ lives. Create how-to guides and tutorials for your audience. Share tips, tricks and provide resources that will help your audience solve problems or learn new skills.
If you’re not sure where to start, ask yourself: What problems do you solve for your target customer? Why should they choose you over your competitors?
Get in touch with us if you need a sounding board for your marketing strategy!
3. Their Website Is Not Optimised for Mobile
Today, mobile users make up 62.45% of global internet traffic. Statista reports that a similar 62.81% of Singaporeans now access the internet through their mobile phones.
Yet many SMEs are still building their businesses around clunky, desktop-only websites.
The result? Consumers put off using or relying on your products and services. They turn instead to competitors who have optimised their websites and business ecosystems around mobile-friendly purchasing and servicing operations.
Now that the world revolves around our mobile phones, it’s imperative to ensure that your target customers can easily access your products and services on their phones.
The user interface (UI) and navigation of your website should be clear and intuitive for small screens. Use simple menus and links that are easy to see and difficult to misclick on a touchscreen.
Customers should be able to access or get in touch with your products and services through your mobile website. This means using implementing a simplified checkout process that is quick and convenient for mobile users and/or including contact and sign-up forms that can be filled up and submitted in a matter of seconds.
All this sound mind-boggling to you? Let StoryBox help you optimise your SME website for mobile!
4. Their Website Is Not SEO-Friendly
Okay, so you’ve optimised your website and made it look stunning for mobile. But a beautiful, website is useless if nobody can find it.
All too often, SMEs neglect search engine optimisation (SEO) in favour of other front-facing marketing efforts.
But SEO is necessary to ensure target customers discover your products and services organically. It is the keywords they type into Google (or ChatGPT) that prompt search engines to scour the Internet for web pages that meet their needs.
If you want your products and services to show up for the people looking for them, you need to include these relevant keywords in your content, optimise meta tags and consistently create high-quality, useful content to boost your brand’s visibility and attract qualified leads.
SEO is more of a science than an art. Let the experts at StoryBox handle it for you!
5. They Are Not Harnessing the Power of Social Media
Many SMEs treat social media as an afterthought, or worse, avoid it altogether. But as a small, emerging brand, there is so much more you get out of social media than big, established brands.
First off, you have fewer hoops of authority to jump through to get approval for new ideas. This means you can actively engage with customers and let them shape the way your brand meets their needs. You can respond to comments, share user-generated solutions and support like-minded creators who may in turn become your most loyal brand advocates.
You can also participate in and shape culture around the solutions you provide by creating content across a variety of formats (including images, text, short videos, long-form videos etc) to leverage trends and get involved in social discourse as they happen.
Social media is where your customers spend the most time, making it the perfect place for you can learn about their needs, pain points, desires and to engage them in heartfelt conversations.
The key to making your brand’s presence known is to be active on platforms where your target audience is active and engage consistently with them.
6. Their Marketing Is Too Automated
AI and automation tools are extremely helpful if you have a small team, which is why many SMEs use them a lot.
But relying too much on such tools can make a brand’s efforts to engage with their target customers feel impersonal and cold.
Sure, AI can sometimes blur the line between human and automated responses, but people can tell the difference between a brand that empathises with their pain and one that’s only cares about selling their products and services.
As the use of AI becomes an ubiquitous part of our lives today, people crave authenticity and human connection. Brands that can meet these needs and build strong relationships with their customers are those who will thrive beyond the digital age.
So while using AI and automation tools can get the job done, always add a human touch to your marketing efforts by personalising emails, interacting with your audiences in person and telling genuine stories that show you understand and empathise.
Too busy to keep up with the demands of social media? StoryBox can be that extra pair of hands you need to maintain your brand’s human touch.
7. They Don’t Keep Up with Marketing Trends
Digital marketing is constantly evolving alongside consumer habits. SMEs that stick to what worked in the past might find their strategies losing relevance over time.
New social media platforms are continuously emerging and opening up fresh ways to reach audiences. Ignoring them means missing opportunities to engage with your target audiences.
Media formats evolve. Today, short-form video, interactive polls and live streaming are the key to catching the attention of audiences. Tomorrow, who know?
Consumer behaviours shift based on world events, culture and localised trends. Keep a pulse on these trends by following industry news, observing your competitors and listening to your customers.
Test out new formats and platforms in small, low-risk ways, then double down on what resonates.
Final Thoughts
Marketing doesn’t have to be complicated for SMEs. The key is keeping your customers at the centre of everything you do. As long as you adapt to their behaviours and learn what makes them tick, your brand will remain relevant, visible and competitive, even in a crowded marketplace.
Don’t have time to do all that market research yourself? Take advantage of the PSG Grant and enjoy up to 50% funding support when you let our team handle the marketing for your SME today!
