What are your biggest challenges in marketing as a small business?

solotarewa · Jul 22, 2025

Hi everyone,

I'm working on a new product for small businesses in Europe to take the headache out of digital marketing.
Right now, we’re building the first version of the product and want to make sure we’re solving the right problems.

If you run a small business (or help someone who does), we’d be so grateful if you could take 10–15 minutes to fill out a short questionnaire. It’ll help us better understand biggest marketing challenges that small businesses face.
Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll share the link to the questionnaire on Google Forms.

Thanks so much for your time and input! If you have any questions or thoughts, please let me know.

Svetlana

fisicx · Jul 22, 2025

Have a read through the many marketing threads here and elsewhere and you will discover a wealth of data.

The main problems is often a lack of research. People and businesses don’t want or are unable to carry out the necessary research required to then put a marketing plan together.

Mark T Jones · Jul 23, 2025

In addition to @fisicx point, I'd say a common problem is FOMO - an unwillingness to focus one one core market for fear of missing out on others. (Spreading the net too wide)

Paul Kelly ICHYB · Jul 23, 2025

solotarewa said:
Right now, we’re building the first version of the product and want to make sure we’re solving the right problems.

Surely you should have defined the problems before you started development?

Are you developers or someone with issues that need resolving?

solotarewa · Jul 23, 2025

Paul Kelly ICHYB said:
Surely you should have defined the problems before you started development?

Are you developers or someone with issues that need resolving?

We have defined the problems, done the competitive analysis, researched community platforms, gone through numerous industry reports and online reviews of competitor platforms, done social listening on major social media platforms, conducted interviews with the focus groups, etc. Customer survey that I mentioned in the post is just one of the many initiatives we do to gather insights. We don't have issues that need resolving, we just want to hear more from our target audience to confirm whether we're on the right track or need to pivot a little.

fisicx · Jul 23, 2025

Who is your target user? Do you want the one man business cleaning windows? Do you want an agency turning over £10m each year? Both are small businesses.

Most businesses don’t need a digital marketing product. What they need is the right marketing advice.

solotarewa · Jul 23, 2025

fisicx said:
Who is your target user? Do you want the one man business cleaning windows? Do you want an agency turning over £10m each year? Both are small businesses.

Most businesses don’t need a digital marketing product. What they need is the right marketing advice.

Up to 15 employees, annual turnover up to 500k + specific industries only - where the offer is most relevant.
Marketing advice = marketing strategy = service, and a service can be productised.

fisicx · Jul 24, 2025

What specific industries?

Will your tool analyse my business model to identify the best marketing channel? Does it monitor and analyse the effectiveness of the marketing? Will it help a wheelie bin cleaner find new clients?

solotarewa · Jul 24, 2025

fisicx said:
What specific industries?

Will your tool analyse my business model to identify the best marketing channel? Does it monitor and analyse the effectiveness of the marketing? Will it help a wheelie bin cleaner find new clients?

The tool will analyse your business model to create a marketing strategy tailored to your needs, not only identify channels. The effectiveness of marketing is a very broad term. I don't think there's a single tool on the market that consolidates all the different aspects. We'll start with analytics for social media and then build from there. If a business indicated finding new clients as one of its goals and follows the steps of the strategy provided, it should get new clients.

fisicx · Jul 24, 2025

Isn’t that what all marketing agencies do? Why do you need a tool to do something that already exists?

And what makes you think social media is key to everything?

Develop your tool as an in house device but build your business around selling your marketing skills. People are more important than tools.

solotarewa · Jul 25, 2025

fisicx said:
Isn’t that what all marketing agencies do? Why do you need a tool to do something that already exists?

And what makes you think social media is key to everything?

Develop your tool as an in house device but build your business around selling your marketing skills. People are more important than tools.

Travel agencies exist as well, but that didn't stop booking.com from introducing a highly successful business model.
What makes you think that I think that social media is key to everything?

Our packages will cover different aspects of digital marketing, such as local SEO, directories, website, email marketing, social media, digital products, etc.
People are more important than tools, yes, but they don't scale as easily.

fisicx · Jul 25, 2025

You are missing the point. Every business is different. A tool can often miss the nuances that a one to one conversation can reveal.

You said:

solotarewa said:
We'll start with analytics for social media and then build from there.

Why start with SM?

When you have a MVP then maybe we will have a better idea of your business model.

solotarewa · Jul 31, 2025

fisicx said:
You are missing the point. Every business is different. A tool can often miss the nuances that a one to one conversation can reveal.

You said:

Why start with SM?

When you have a MVP then maybe we will have a better idea of your business model.

I appreciate your perspective and understand where you're coming from. That said, our focus is firmly on building a product, not creating an agency. While there may be some overlap, we're approaching it quite intentionally from a different angle. Time will tell if we’ve found the right niche.

The purpose of this post was to gather insights directly from our target audience about their marketing challenges. It wasn’t meant to present our MVP, promote the product, or open a wider brainstorming thread—mainly to avoid diluting the focus at this early stage.

I value the interest and questions—it’s great food for thought. But for now, I’m specifically looking to hear from potential users to help shape the foundation based on their real needs.

Paul Kelly ICHYB · Jul 31, 2025

I think you will quickly find out that your potential audience does not know what they want!

fisicx · Jul 31, 2025

Paul Kelly ICHYB said:
I think you will quickly find out that your potential audience does not know what they want!

It’s always the case. Many think marketing begins and ends with Facebook.

ethical PR · Aug 4, 2025

solotarewa said:
I appreciate your perspective and understand where you're coming from. That said, our focus is firmly on building a product, not creating an agency. While there may be some overlap, we're approaching it quite intentionally from a different angle. Time will tell if we’ve found the right niche.

The purpose of this post was to gather insights directly from our target audience about their marketing challenges. It wasn’t meant to present our MVP, promote the product, or open a wider brainstorming thread—mainly to avoid diluting the focus at this early stage.

I value the interest and questions—it’s great food for thought. But for now, I’m specifically looking to hear from potential users to help shape the foundation based on their real needs.

As you've done all the qualitative research what has it told you about what problems customers want you to solve .

What does your product offer in terms of digital marketing that existing products in the market don't?

It is concerning that you tend to use social media/digital marketing and marketing interchangeably?

ethical PR · Aug 5, 2025

solotarewa said:
I appreciate your perspective and understand where you're coming from. That said, our focus is firmly on building a product, not creating an agency. While there may be some overlap, we're approaching it quite intentionally from a different angle. Time will tell if we’ve found the right niche.

The purpose of this post was to gather insights directly from our target audience about their marketing challenges. It wasn’t meant to present our MVP, promote the product, or open a wider brainstorming thread—mainly to avoid diluting the focus at this early stage.

I value the interest and questions—it’s great food for thought. But for now, I’m specifically looking to hear from potential users to help shape the foundation based on their real needs.

How much are you offering people to take part in your market research?

solotarewa · Aug 6, 2025

Paul Kelly ICHYB said:
I think you will quickly find out that your potential audience does not know what they want!

That’s a fair point—people often struggle to articulate what they want and even when they do express what they think they want, it’s not always the thing that will actually solve their problem. But what they are usually very clear about are their pain points—what’s frustrating, what takes too much time, what they’ve tried and abandoned because it didn’t work. And that’s really what we’re trying to tap into. By understanding those frustrations, we can figure out how best to solve them.

I’m sure, given your background in startup consulting, this is something you’ve seen firsthand as well. As you know, good customer research isn’t about asking people to design the product for you—it’s about identifying the right problems to solve.

Thanks for your input!

solotarewa · Aug 6, 2025

fisicx said:
It’s always the case. Many think marketing begins and ends with Facebook.

Would be great to see where that data comes from!

From what we’ve seen so far in our responses, that’s not really how our audience approaches digital marketing. They’re struggling more with things like time management, keeping up with trends and social media algorithms, and, most importantly, figuring out what actually works for their business and how marketing ties into their business goals. Definitely not a one‑channel mindset.

solotarewa · Aug 6, 2025

ethical PR said:
As you've done all the qualitative research what has it told you about what problems customers want you to solve .

What does your product offer in terms of digital marketing that existing products in the market don't?

It is concerning that you tend to use social media/digital marketing and marketing interchangeably?

Time management, keeping up with trends and social media algorithms, and, most importantly, figuring out what actually works for their business and how marketing ties into their business goals.

We provide industry-tailored strategy and content as well as step-by-steps plans for their business—no one-size-fits-all and without agency price tags.

No, because we don’t—but thanks for flagging, we’ll check our comms for clarity.

solotarewa · Aug 6, 2025

ethical PR said:
How much are you offering people to take part in your market research?

Free access to the beta version

fantheflames · Aug 18, 2025

I think it may come down to either not fully understanding the customer or assuming that all customers are in the same place, which ultimately ties back to lack of understanding.

ethical PR · Aug 20, 2025

solotarewa said:
Free access to the beta version

So nothing

Bucko · Aug 20, 2025

fisicx said:
You are missing the point. Every business is different. A tool can often miss the nuances that a one to one conversation can reveal.

You said:

Why start with SM?

When you have a MVP then maybe we will have a better idea of your business model.

Nicely said @fisicx - its the big issue that we are trying to solve with our "all-in-one AI team" sorry "all-in-one intelligent platform"

all businesses are different, even ones in the same sector and yet we feel we can help everyone; narrowing down to a niche/sector has been a stumbling block, especially when you have to speak in the lingo of ones niche!

Bucko · Aug 20, 2025

ethical PR said:
So nothing

OUCH!!!!

Bucko · Aug 20, 2025

Paul Kelly ICHYB said:
I think you will quickly find out that your potential audience does not know what they want!

indeed - having spent the most of my career helping teams and orgs build software in an Agile way - I couldn't agree more @Paul Kelly ICHYB - hence iterative and incremental, evolve through feedback etc

NickZ · Aug 27, 2025

The lack of serious funding.

ThatDevAaron · Aug 30, 2025

NickZ said:
The lack of serious funding.

+++++++++1

without $$ - marketing is very hard.

fisicx · Aug 30, 2025

NickZ said:
The lack of serious funding.

Depends on your business. All my marketing is free.

NickZ · Aug 31, 2025

fisicx said:
Depends on your business. All my marketing is free.

The myth of free marketing:

Breaking the Myth: Digital Marketing Isn't Free

Digital marketing has become the undisputed backbone of modern brand promotion. Its potential to reach highly targeted audiences, create personalized experiences, and drive measurable conversions is

www.newmediaandmarketing.com

fisicx · Aug 31, 2025

NickZ said:
The myth of free marketing:

A very disingenuous article. Nothing written there applies to me.

Home&Pet · Oct 29, 2025

Personally, I believe it all comes down to two things — attracting traffic and earning the trust of customers.

Mark T Jones · Oct 29, 2025

Home&Pet said:
Personally, I believe it all comes down to two things — attracting traffic and earning the trust of customers.

True - but that's the outcome, the rewarding bit at the end of the process

fisicx · Oct 29, 2025

As @solotarewa hasn’t been back since they started this thread it probably means they didn’t like the feedback they got or didn’t like us.

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What are your biggest challenges in marketing as a small business?