Worth mastering: What are marketing challenges?

What are marketing challenges is a question that evolves and is worth staying on top of. After all, how can we create a marketing performance culture if we are unclear about the current challenges?

So let’s look at some of the common marketing challenges that marketing teams face from internal to external:

• Audience preference evolves
• Networks change
• Competitors make a play
• Budgets
• Internal workflows 

But, the biggest marketing challenge is to drive agreed-upon results. Are the marketing activities driving awareness, land leads, and are they keeping the brand top of mind of prospects? While that’s the most significant marketing challenge to fix, other challenges along the way can get in the way. But, if we solve those, we can succeed in a marketing career.

Audience preferences evolve

Understanding an audience’s current preferences can be a challenge. And things change. People prefer to be contacted one way, and then that changes. Some brands have influenced how consumers do things. Just look at “TV consumption.”  Streaming services like YouTube TV to Apple Watches to successfully work as a distributed team – we need to understand how consumers behave and what they prefer.

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Networks change

Twitter certainly has changed since Elon Musk took over. Likewise, other networks have come and gone – including in the short-form audio arena. Facebook might still be where many people are, but I’ve also heard from a bunch who deleted their accounts. Mine is de-activated, too, and I mostly use the platform’s Messenger to talk to people.

Where people connect can change for several reasons:

• Change in business priorities for the companies that run those networks.
• Government influence – i.e., how the U.S. government is considering banning TikTok, and some states already have banned the app from state devices.
• Change in consumer behavior. Sometimes, consumers get tired of a service and start moving on to something else.

The key here is to stay ahead of what is currently working and try to maximize those ways.

It certainly doesn’t make things easier that basically anyone can now become an influential creator with the right strategies and content.

Read next: Does it hurt a brand if employees-only like company social posts?

Competitors make a play.

At times, emerging brands make a play and grab the consumer’s attention. It’s harder than ever to understand the competitive landscape – not impossible, but many brands – even seemingly unrelated ones – make a play for consumer attention.

So understanding where people’s attention is and how to get it meaningfully is helpful in standing out from the competitive landscape.

Read next: What to do when everyone thinks they’re an expert

Budgets

I’m confident I’ve never seen a marketing team with enough budget. There’s always room to use more funds for more strategies. For example, hire more content creators, run one more campaign, or attend one more industry event. There’s always more that could be done.

But that also shouldn’t be used as an excuse not to allocate the proper budget to marketing. Marketing expertise costs money. So does the implementation. The necessary technology is also not free.

So not having the right – or even close-ish to the right – budget can be a massive challenge for teams.

Read next: Why results and respect in the workplace matter

Internal workflows

Internal workflows can make the lives of marketers easier or harder. Using the right technology – like artificial intelligence – good workflows, and the best techniques to be creative together can help teams actually get stuff done.

Putting people through approval hell or making things unnecessarily difficult can also be a challenge to get things done, which can lead to not driving marketing performance. Some companies have people who know it all and dig in their heels. In theory, that can be okay if they are correct, but claiming to know it all is typically not good leadership and doesn’t promote a good team culture.

Read next: 7 ways to write content faster

Final thoughts

Indeed, there are challenges marketing teams face to drive results. However, understanding what hurdles to overcome can help teams master them and create the right culture to drive results.