example of problem solving in marketing

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7 Proven Problem Solving Techniques for Marketing Managers

May 13, 2024
by steven-austin

As a marketing manager, your job is all about finding creative solutions to complex challenges. Whether you‘re trying to boost sluggish sales, outmaneuver the competition, or do more with a limited budget, problem solving skills are essential.

The most successful marketing leaders are expert problem solvers. They‘re able to analyze issues from multiple angles, think outside the box to generate innovative ideas, and then take decisive action to achieve the best possible outcomes.

But problem solving isn‘t an innate talent that you‘re either born with or not. It‘s a skill that can be learned, practiced, and mastered over time. By developing your problem solving abilities, you‘ll be able to tackle bigger challenges, make smarter decisions, and add more value to your organization.

In this post, we‘ll equip you with 7 proven problem solving techniques used by top marketers. For each one, we‘ll explain what it is, how it works, and provide real-world examples and tools to help you put it into practice. Let‘s dive in!

1. Identify and define the problem

The first step to solving any problem is to identify exactly what the problem is. This may sound obvious, but it‘s a step that‘s often rushed or overlooked. Many attempted solutions fail because they‘re solving the wrong problem.

Start by gathering as much relevant information as you can. Collect data, talk to stakeholders, and study the situation from multiple angles. Aim to determine the root causes driving the visible symptoms.

For example, let‘s say your company‘s email open rates have been steadily declining for months. It would be easy to jump to solutions like changing the subject lines or sending frequency. But by digging deeper, you might discover that the real problem is that your email list is full of inactive subscribers who haven‘t opened a single email in over a year. Removing them would immediately boost open rates.

There are a couple useful tools that can help with root cause analysis:

5 Whys : This technique involves repeatedly asking "why" to drill down into the underlying drivers behind a problem. Starting with the initial problem, ask why it‘s happening. Then look at the answer and ask "why" again. After 5 iterations, you‘ll usually have identified a root cause.

Fishbone diagram : Also called a cause-and-effect diagram, this visual tool helps you categorize potential causes into major categories like people, equipment, materials, environment, processes, and so on. By filling out each "bone" of the diagram, you can see how different factors combine to create the overall problem.

2. Brainstorm potential solutions

Once you‘ve clearly defined the problem, it‘s time to generate ideas for how to solve it. The key here is to separate idea generation from evaluation.

Give yourself and your team total freedom to brainstorm without worrying if ideas are good or bad. Encourage creativity and out-of-the box thinking. The goal is quantity, not quality at this stage.

There are many different techniques you can use to fuel creative brainstorming:

Mind mapping : Start with your problem statement in the center and branch out with ideas, grouping related ideas together. Keep branching out until you‘ve exhausted all possibilities.

SCAMPER : Walk through the SCAMPER checklist of idea-spurring questions: Substitute something, Combine it with something else, Adapt something to it, Modify or magnify it, Put it to some other use, Eliminate something, Reverse or rearrange it.

Brainwriting : Rather than verbally sharing ideas, participants write down their ideas on sticky notes and place them in the middle of the table for others to read and build on. This neutralizes loud voices and encourages equal participation.

Starbursting : Focus the brainstorm by asking who, what, when, where, why, and how questions about the problem at hand.

3. Evaluate and select a solution

With a robust list of potential solutions in hand, now it‘s time to evaluate them and choose the best one. Rushing into action without thoroughly vetting options is a recipe for wasted time and resources.

To assess each potential solution, you‘ll want to gather input from people with different perspectives and consider questions like:

How effective is this likely to be at solving the problem?
What are the costs and resource requirements?
How long will it take to implement and see results?
What are the risks or potential negative consequences?
Do we have the capabilities to execute this well?

You can use tools like a decision matrix, SWOT analysis or paired comparison analysis to guide your evaluation in a more systematic way. Getting input from a broad range of stakeholders also helps ensure you don‘t overlook important considerations.

For major decisions, you‘ll also need to think about the buy-in and change management needed for successful implementation. Choosing an analytically strong solution that meets huge resistance from stakeholders may be worse than an acceptable solution that everyone can get behind.

4. Develop an implementation plan

Even the best solution is only as good as its execution. So once you‘ve selected an approach, it‘s crucial to develop a thorough implementation plan.

Investing time to plan upfront will help you avoid unexpected obstacles, keep your team aligned, and hit your target outcomes. Here are some of the key elements to include in an implementation plan:

Action steps : Break the solution down into specific, concrete tasks that need to be completed. Make each one as clear and granular as possible, so there‘s no room for confusion.

Roles and responsibilities : Clarify exactly who is responsible for each action item. Make sure each person is clear on what they‘re expected to do, and how their part fits into the overall solution.

Timelines and milestones : Lay out the overall schedule for implementation, including key milestones and dependencies between tasks. Be realistic in your time estimates to avoid missed deadlines.

Resource requirements : Identify and secure any resources needed for successful implementation, such as budget, personnel, equipment, technology, or outside expertise.

If you‘re not familiar with them, I‘d suggest learning how to use Gantt charts, work breakdown structures (WBS), and RACI matrices. These tools are tailor-made for translating solutions into actionable plans.

5. Monitor implementation and evaluate results

Implementing a solution isn‘t a "set it and forget it" operation. You need to proactively monitor progress, track results, and course-correct as needed.

Start by defining what success looks like. What specific outcomes are you trying to achieve? What metrics will you use to measure those outcomes? And what targets will indicate that the problem has been solved to your satisfaction?

As you execute your implementation plan, you‘ll want to track progress and results in as close to real-time as possible. Tools like project dashboards and status reports can give you the necessary visibility. If you spot areas where execution is behind schedule or below target, drill down to diagnose why and decide if any adjustments are needed.

Even if the implementation goes perfectly, your team should still complete an after action review once the solution has been completed. Bring key players together and review questions like:

What went well? What didn‘t go well?
What did we learn that could be applied to future problems?
If we had to do it over again, what would we do differently?

Regularly reflecting on and learning from each problem solving experience is one of the best ways to hone your skills over time.

6. Continuously improve problem solving skills

One of the traits that distinguishes great marketing leaders is that they‘re lifelong learners. No matter how experienced they are, they maintain a growth mindset and continuously work to expand their capabilities.

Problem solving is definitely a skill where there‘s always room to learn and improve. To keep leveling up your abilities, proactively seek out new challenges. Volunteer for initiatives and projects that will stretch your problem solving muscles. If you see a problem that‘s not being addressed, take the initiative to tackle it.

You can also deliberately build your problem solving tool kit. Read books and take courses to learn new frameworks, methodologies, and technologies you can apply. Look for opportunities to apply what you‘re learning to real-world situations.

Finally, make an effort to pass on what you know to others. By teaching and coaching less experienced colleagues, you‘ll clarify and cement your own understanding. And by investing in your team, you‘ll amplify your impact and effectiveness.

7. Cultivate key problem solving traits

While tools and techniques are important, the best problem solvers tend to also cultivate a few key attitudes and behaviors:

Intellectual curiosity : They have a deep desire to understand how things work and why. If something doesn‘t make sense, they dig into it until they figure it out.

Embrace of ambiguity : They‘re comfortable wading into uncertain or unclear situations. Where others see frustration, they see possibility.

Willingness to experiment : They view problem solving as an iterative process of trial and error. If an initial attempt doesn‘t work, they reframe it as a learning opportunity and keep trying.

Balance of analytical and creative thinking : They leverage both left-brain logic and right-brain creativity. They look at data to understand all angles of a problem, and then use their imagination to come up with original solutions.

Inclusivity of diverse perspectives : They know that their own knowledge is limited, so they actively seek out and listen to differing viewpoints. They harness cognitive diversity to see past blind spots and make better decisions.

By combining these traits with a robust problem solving skill set, you‘ll be well equipped to handle whatever challenges come your way.

As a marketing manager, solving problems is an inescapable part of your job. But by developing your problem solving skills, you can turn those challenges into opportunities.

The 7 techniques laid out in this post give you a versatile tool kit to tackle any issue – from declining sales to internal dysfunction. Master them and you‘ll be able to analyze complex situations, make smart decisions, and mobilize your team to achieve better results.

But remember, problem solving isn‘t a solo sport. The best leaders also invest in building the problem solving capabilities of their entire team. So share these techniques with your colleagues, and establish a shared language and approach to collaborative problem solving.

By making problem solving a core competency of your marketing organization, you‘ll be able to consistently turn even the thorniest challenges into elegant, effective solutions. And that‘s how you‘ll deliver breakout value to your company and your customers.

26 Expert-Backed Problem Solving Examples – Interview Answers

Published: February 13, 2023

Interview Questions and Answers

Actionable advice from real experts:

Biron Clark

Former Recruiter

Contributor

Dr. Kyle Elliott

Career Coach

Hayley Jukes

Editor-in-Chief

Biron Clark , Former Recruiter

Kyle Elliott , Career Coach

Hayley Jukes , Editor

As a recruiter , I know employers like to hire people who can solve problems and work well under pressure.

A job rarely goes 100% according to plan, so hiring managers are more likely to hire you if you seem like you can handle unexpected challenges while staying calm and logical.

But how do they measure this?

Hiring managers will ask you interview questions about your problem-solving skills, and they might also look for examples of problem-solving on your resume and cover letter.

In this article, I’m going to share a list of problem-solving examples and sample interview answers to questions like, “Give an example of a time you used logic to solve a problem?” and “Describe a time when you had to solve a problem without managerial input. How did you handle it, and what was the result?”

Problem-solving involves identifying, prioritizing, analyzing, and solving problems using a variety of skills like critical thinking, creativity, decision making, and communication.
Describe the Situation, Task, Action, and Result ( STAR method ) when discussing your problem-solving experiences.
Tailor your interview answer with the specific skills and qualifications outlined in the job description.
Provide numerical data or metrics to demonstrate the tangible impact of your problem-solving efforts.

What are Problem Solving Skills?

Problem-solving is the ability to identify a problem, prioritize based on gravity and urgency, analyze the root cause, gather relevant information, develop and evaluate viable solutions, decide on the most effective and logical solution, and plan and execute implementation.

Problem-solving encompasses other skills that can be showcased in an interview response and your resume. Problem-solving skills examples include:

Critical thinking
Analytical skills
Decision making
Research skills
Technical skills
Communication skills
Adaptability and flexibility

Why is Problem Solving Important in the Workplace?

Problem-solving is essential in the workplace because it directly impacts productivity and efficiency. Whenever you encounter a problem, tackling it head-on prevents minor issues from escalating into bigger ones that could disrupt the entire workflow.

Beyond maintaining smooth operations, your ability to solve problems fosters innovation. It encourages you to think creatively, finding better ways to achieve goals, which keeps the business competitive and pushes the boundaries of what you can achieve.

Effective problem-solving also contributes to a healthier work environment; it reduces stress by providing clear strategies for overcoming obstacles and builds confidence within teams.

Examples of Problem-Solving in the Workplace

Correcting a mistake at work, whether it was made by you or someone else
Overcoming a delay at work through problem solving and communication
Resolving an issue with a difficult or upset customer
Overcoming issues related to a limited budget, and still delivering good work through the use of creative problem solving
Overcoming a scheduling/staffing shortage in the department to still deliver excellent work
Troubleshooting and resolving technical issues
Handling and resolving a conflict with a coworker
Solving any problems related to money, customer billing, accounting and bookkeeping, etc.
Taking initiative when another team member overlooked or missed something important
Taking initiative to meet with your superior to discuss a problem before it became potentially worse
Solving a safety issue at work or reporting the issue to those who could solve it
Using problem solving abilities to reduce/eliminate a company expense
Finding a way to make the company more profitable through new service or product offerings, new pricing ideas, promotion and sale ideas, etc.
Changing how a process, team, or task is organized to make it more efficient
Using creative thinking to come up with a solution that the company hasn’t used before
Performing research to collect data and information to find a new solution to a problem
Boosting a company or team’s performance by improving some aspect of communication among employees
Finding a new piece of data that can guide a company’s decisions or strategy better in a certain area

Problem-Solving Examples for Recent Grads/Entry-Level Job Seekers

Coordinating work between team members in a class project
Reassigning a missing team member’s work to other group members in a class project
Adjusting your workflow on a project to accommodate a tight deadline
Speaking to your professor to get help when you were struggling or unsure about a project
Asking classmates, peers, or professors for help in an area of struggle
Talking to your academic advisor to brainstorm solutions to a problem you were facing
Researching solutions to an academic problem online, via Google or other methods
Using problem solving and creative thinking to obtain an internship or other work opportunity during school after struggling at first

How To Answer “Tell Us About a Problem You Solved”

When you answer interview questions about problem-solving scenarios, or if you decide to demonstrate your problem-solving skills in a cover letter (which is a good idea any time the job description mentions problem-solving as a necessary skill), I recommend using the STAR method.

STAR stands for:

It’s a simple way of walking the listener or reader through the story in a way that will make sense to them.

Start by briefly describing the general situation and the task at hand. After this, describe the course of action you chose and why. Ideally, show that you evaluated all the information you could given the time you had, and made a decision based on logic and fact. Finally, describe the positive result you achieved.

Note: Our sample answers below are structured following the STAR formula. Be sure to check them out!

EXPERT ADVICE

Dr. Kyle Elliott , MPA, CHES Tech & Interview Career Coach caffeinatedkyle.com

How can I communicate complex problem-solving experiences clearly and succinctly?

Before answering any interview question, it’s important to understand why the interviewer is asking the question in the first place.

When it comes to questions about your complex problem-solving experiences, for example, the interviewer likely wants to know about your leadership acumen, collaboration abilities, and communication skills, not the problem itself.

Therefore, your answer should be focused on highlighting how you excelled in each of these areas, not diving into the weeds of the problem itself, which is a common mistake less-experienced interviewees often make.

Tailoring Your Answer Based on the Skills Mentioned in the Job Description

As a recruiter, one of the top tips I can give you when responding to the prompt “Tell us about a problem you solved,” is to tailor your answer to the specific skills and qualifications outlined in the job description.

Once you’ve pinpointed the skills and key competencies the employer is seeking, craft your response to highlight experiences where you successfully utilized or developed those particular abilities.

For instance, if the job requires strong leadership skills, focus on a problem-solving scenario where you took charge and effectively guided a team toward resolution.

By aligning your answer with the desired skills outlined in the job description, you demonstrate your suitability for the role and show the employer that you understand their needs.

Amanda Augustine expands on this by saying:

“Showcase the specific skills you used to solve the problem. Did it require critical thinking, analytical abilities, or strong collaboration? Highlight the relevant skills the employer is seeking.”

Interview Answers to “Tell Me About a Time You Solved a Problem”

Now, let’s look at some sample interview answers to, “Give me an example of a time you used logic to solve a problem,” or “Tell me about a time you solved a problem,” since you’re likely to hear different versions of this interview question in all sorts of industries.

The example interview responses are structured using the STAR method and are categorized into the top 5 key problem-solving skills recruiters look for in a candidate.

1. Analytical Thinking

Situation: In my previous role as a data analyst , our team encountered a significant drop in website traffic.

Task: I was tasked with identifying the root cause of the decrease.

Action: I conducted a thorough analysis of website metrics, including traffic sources, user demographics, and page performance. Through my analysis, I discovered a technical issue with our website’s loading speed, causing users to bounce.

Result: By optimizing server response time, compressing images, and minimizing redirects, we saw a 20% increase in traffic within two weeks.

2. Critical Thinking

Situation: During a project deadline crunch, our team encountered a major technical issue that threatened to derail our progress.

Task: My task was to assess the situation and devise a solution quickly.

Action: I immediately convened a meeting with the team to brainstorm potential solutions. Instead of panicking, I encouraged everyone to think outside the box and consider unconventional approaches. We analyzed the problem from different angles and weighed the pros and cons of each solution.

Result: By devising a workaround solution, we were able to meet the project deadline, avoiding potential delays that could have cost the company $100,000 in penalties for missing contractual obligations.

3. Decision Making

Situation: As a project manager , I was faced with a dilemma when two key team members had conflicting opinions on the project direction.

Task: My task was to make a decisive choice that would align with the project goals and maintain team cohesion.

Action: I scheduled a meeting with both team members to understand their perspectives in detail. I listened actively, asked probing questions, and encouraged open dialogue. After carefully weighing the pros and cons of each approach, I made a decision that incorporated elements from both viewpoints.

Result: The decision I made not only resolved the immediate conflict but also led to a stronger sense of collaboration within the team. By valuing input from all team members and making a well-informed decision, we were able to achieve our project objectives efficiently.

4. Communication (Teamwork)

Situation: During a cross-functional project, miscommunication between departments was causing delays and misunderstandings.

Task: My task was to improve communication channels and foster better teamwork among team members.

Action: I initiated regular cross-departmental meetings to ensure that everyone was on the same page regarding project goals and timelines. I also implemented a centralized communication platform where team members could share updates, ask questions, and collaborate more effectively.

Result: Streamlining workflows and improving communication channels led to a 30% reduction in project completion time, saving the company $25,000 in operational costs.

5. Persistence

Situation: During a challenging sales quarter, I encountered numerous rejections and setbacks while trying to close a major client deal.

Task: My task was to persistently pursue the client and overcome obstacles to secure the deal.

Action: I maintained regular communication with the client, addressing their concerns and demonstrating the value proposition of our product. Despite facing multiple rejections, I remained persistent and resilient, adjusting my approach based on feedback and market dynamics.

Result: After months of perseverance, I successfully closed the deal with the client. By closing the major client deal, I exceeded quarterly sales targets by 25%, resulting in a revenue increase of $250,000 for the company.

Tips to Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills

Throughout your career, being able to showcase and effectively communicate your problem-solving skills gives you more leverage in achieving better jobs and earning more money .

So to improve your problem-solving skills, I recommend always analyzing a problem and situation before acting.

When discussing problem-solving with employers, you never want to sound like you rush or make impulsive decisions. They want to see fact-based or data-based decisions when you solve problems.

Don’t just say you’re good at solving problems. Show it with specifics. How much did you boost efficiency? Did you save the company money? Adding numbers can really make your achievements stand out.

To get better at solving problems, analyze the outcomes of past solutions you came up with. You can recognize what works and what doesn’t.

Think about how you can improve researching and analyzing a situation, how you can get better at communicating, and deciding on the right people in the organization to talk to and “pull in” to help you if needed, etc.

Finally, practice staying calm even in stressful situations. Take a few minutes to walk outside if needed. Step away from your phone and computer to clear your head. A work problem is rarely so urgent that you cannot take five minutes to think (with the possible exception of safety problems), and you’ll get better outcomes if you solve problems by acting logically instead of rushing to react in a panic.

You can use all of the ideas above to describe your problem-solving skills when asked interview questions about the topic. If you say that you do the things above, employers will be impressed when they assess your problem-solving ability.

More Interview Resources

3 Answers to “How Do You Handle Stress?”
How to Answer “How Do You Handle Conflict?” (Interview Question)
Sample Answers to “Tell Me About a Time You Failed”

About the Author

Biron Clark is a former executive recruiter who has worked individually with hundreds of job seekers, reviewed thousands of resumes and LinkedIn profiles, and recruited for top venture-backed startups and Fortune 500 companies. He has been advising job seekers since 2012 to think differently in their job search and land high-paying, competitive positions. Follow on Twitter and LinkedIn .

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How to Conduct a Problem-Solving Session in Marketing?

First Multilingual Learning Coach for CIPD Qualifications

In today’s competitive business world, marketing professionals face numerous challenges that require effective problem-solving skills. From developing successful marketing strategies to overcoming obstacles, problem-solving plays a crucial role in achieving marketing success. In this article, we will explore the importance of problem-solving in marketing and provide practical techniques for conducting problem-solving sessions.

Understanding the Importance of Problem-Solving in Marketing

Problem-solving is an essential aspect of marketing as it allows businesses to identify and overcome obstacles that hinder their progress. By addressing problems head-on, marketing professionals can improve their strategies, develop innovative solutions, and drive business growth. Effective problem-solving enables marketers to identify opportunities, make informed decisions, and stay ahead of the competition.

In today’s fast-paced and ever-evolving business landscape, problem-solving has become a crucial skill for marketers. It goes beyond simply identifying issues; it involves analyzing data, conducting market research, and applying critical thinking to find the most effective solutions. Successful problem-solving in marketing requires a combination of creativity, analytical skills, and a deep understanding of consumer behavior.

One of the key benefits of problem-solving in marketing is the ability to identify opportunities. By actively seeking out and addressing challenges, marketers can uncover untapped markets, niche segments, and new ways to reach their target audience. This proactive approach allows businesses to stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on emerging trends.

The Role of Problem-Solving in Marketing Success

Problem-solving plays a critical role in achieving marketing success. It helps marketers identify and address the root causes of issues, allowing them to develop targeted solutions. By resolving problems, marketing professionals can enhance customer satisfaction, improve brand reputation, and increase sales. Problem-solving also fosters creativity and innovation, enabling businesses to stay relevant and adapt to changing market demands.

When faced with a marketing challenge, problem-solving allows marketers to think outside the box and come up with unique solutions. It encourages them to explore alternative strategies, experiment with different approaches, and take calculated risks. This mindset of continuous improvement and adaptability is essential in today’s dynamic business environment.

Moreover, problem-solving in marketing is not limited to addressing external issues. It also involves internal problem-solving, such as improving team collaboration, streamlining processes, and optimizing resource allocation. By identifying and resolving internal bottlenecks, marketers can create a more efficient and productive work environment, leading to better overall marketing performance.

Key Challenges in Marketing Problem-Solving

Marketing problem-solving presents unique challenges that require careful consideration. Some of the common challenges include limited resources, time constraints, and conflicting opinions among team members. Additionally, identifying the underlying causes of problems can be complex, as multiple factors often contribute to marketing issues. Overcoming these challenges requires a systematic approach and effective communication within the team.

Limited resources, such as budget constraints or a shortage of skilled personnel, can hinder problem-solving efforts in marketing. Marketers must find creative ways to maximize their resources and prioritize their efforts to achieve the best possible outcomes. Time constraints also pose a challenge, as marketers often face tight deadlines and the need for quick decision-making. Effective time management and prioritization skills are crucial in such situations.

Another common challenge in marketing problem-solving is dealing with conflicting opinions and perspectives within the team. Different team members may have varying ideas on how to approach a problem, which can lead to disagreements and delays. Effective communication and collaboration are essential to overcome these challenges and ensure that everyone is aligned towards a common goal.

Furthermore, identifying the underlying causes of marketing problems can be complex. Issues may arise from a combination of factors, such as market trends, consumer behavior, or internal processes. Marketers need to conduct thorough research, gather data, and analyze information to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem. This analytical approach helps in developing targeted solutions that address the root causes and deliver long-term results.

In conclusion, problem-solving is a fundamental skill for marketers, enabling them to overcome obstacles, identify opportunities, and drive business success. By embracing a proactive and systematic approach to problem-solving, marketers can enhance their strategies, improve customer satisfaction, and stay ahead of the competition in today’s dynamic marketing landscape.

Preparing for a Problem-Solving Session

Before conducting a problem-solving session, it is crucial to lay the groundwork for success. This involves several key steps that ensure the session is focused and productive.

One important aspect of preparing for a problem-solving session is creating an environment that fosters creativity and collaboration. This can be achieved by setting up a comfortable and well-equipped meeting space, providing ample whiteboards or flipcharts for brainstorming, and ensuring that everyone has access to the necessary materials and resources.

Another crucial step in preparing for a problem-solving session is conducting thorough research and analysis. This includes gathering relevant data, analyzing market trends, and understanding customer feedback. By taking the time to gather and analyze this information, marketers can gain valuable insights into the problem at hand and identify potential solutions.

Identifying the Marketing Problem

The first step in preparing for a problem-solving session is to clearly identify the marketing problem at hand. This involves gathering relevant data, analyzing market trends, and understanding customer feedback. By clearly defining the problem, marketers can focus their efforts on finding solutions that address the root cause rather than merely addressing symptoms.

During the problem identification phase, it is important to involve key stakeholders and decision-makers. This ensures that all perspectives are taken into account and that the problem is thoroughly understood from various angles. By involving stakeholders early on, marketers can also gain buy-in and support for the problem-solving process.

Additionally, conducting a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) can provide valuable insights into the marketing problem. This analysis helps identify internal and external factors that may impact the problem and can guide the problem-solving session towards effective solutions.

Assembling the Right Team

Successful problem-solving sessions require a diverse team with complementary skills and expertise. It is essential to assemble a group of individuals who can bring different perspectives to the table. Including team members from various departments such as marketing, sales, and research and development ensures a well-rounded approach to problem-solving.

When assembling the team, it is important to consider each individual’s strengths and areas of expertise. This ensures that the team has the necessary skills to tackle the problem at hand and can provide valuable insights and ideas. Additionally, fostering a collaborative and inclusive team culture encourages open communication and idea-sharing, leading to more effective problem-solving.

Furthermore, it can be beneficial to include individuals who have experience in similar problem-solving sessions or have a track record of innovative thinking. Their past experiences and knowledge can provide valuable guidance and help the team avoid common pitfalls.

Setting Clear Objectives for the Session

Establishing clear objectives is crucial for guiding the problem-solving session. Clearly defined goals help team members stay focused and ensure that the session remains on track. Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives provides a framework for success.

During the objective-setting phase, it is important to involve the entire team in the process. This ensures that everyone has a shared understanding of the desired outcomes and can contribute their ideas and suggestions. By involving the team in setting the objectives, it also increases their ownership and commitment to achieving the goals.

Additionally, it can be helpful to prioritize the objectives based on their importance and impact. This allows the team to allocate their time and resources effectively and ensures that the most critical issues are addressed first.

Furthermore, setting milestones and checkpoints throughout the problem-solving session can help track progress and make adjustments if needed. Regularly reviewing and reassessing the objectives ensures that the team stays on course and can adapt to any unforeseen challenges.

Techniques for Effective Problem-Solving in Marketing

Once the groundwork is laid, it’s time to dive into the problem-solving process. There are various techniques that marketing professionals can employ to generate innovative ideas and find effective solutions.

Brainstorming and Idea Generation

Brainstorming is a tried-and-true method for generating creative ideas and solutions. By encouraging free thinking and suspending judgment, brainstorming allows team members to share their thoughts openly. This technique often leads to unexpected connections and breakthrough solutions.

The Six Thinking Hats Technique

The Six Thinking Hats technique, developed by Edward de Bono, is a powerful tool for problem-solving. It involves assigning different “hats” to each team member, representing different modes of thinking (e.g., logic, creativity, emotions). This approach helps teams thoroughly analyze problems from various perspectives and make more robust decisions.

The Five Whys Technique

The Five Whys technique is a simple yet effective method for uncovering the root cause of a problem. It involves asking “why” up to five times to drill down to the underlying issues. By repeatedly asking “why,” marketers can uncover deeper insights and develop solutions that address the core problem.

Implementing Solutions and Monitoring Progress

Once potential solutions are identified, it’s crucial to prioritize and implement them effectively. Additionally, monitoring progress and measuring success ensure that the implemented solutions yield the desired outcomes.

Prioritizing and Selecting Solutions

Not all solutions are equal in terms of feasibility and impact. It’s vital to prioritize potential solutions based on various factors such as their alignment with objectives, available resources, and potential risks. Selecting the most suitable solutions requires careful evaluation and consensus among team members.

Creating an Action Plan

An action plan outlines the steps required to implement the chosen solutions. It specifies responsibilities, timelines, and key milestones. A well-defined action plan ensures that the implementation process is efficient and that progress can be effectively monitored.

Tracking Progress and Measuring Success

Monitoring progress is essential to ensure that the implemented solutions are achieving the desired outcomes. Key performance indicators (KPIs) should be established to measure success and track progress over time. Regular evaluation and adjustment of strategies are crucial to stay on track and continually improve marketing efforts.

Conducting problem-solving sessions in marketing is vital for identifying and overcoming obstacles that hinder success. Understanding the importance of problem-solving, preparing for sessions, employing effective techniques, and implementing solutions are all critical steps in the process. By embracing problem-solving as an integral part of marketing, professionals can drive innovation, enhance competitiveness, and achieve business growth.

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Common Marketing Problems You May Be Facing

The worst possible response to marketing problems is to freak out. First, you must understand that this is, sadly, much more normal than you’d expect. There are certain obstacles nearly everyone in the industry encounters at one time or another.

Before diagnosing a situation, you should start by figuring out if it’s a marketing problem or a business problem. Although advertising agencies are called to fix marketing problems, if you do a deep dive into what’s going on, you may actually discover that it’s a problem connected to the business.

Business Problems: Any hurdle, situation or variation that leads to a difference between the desired objectives and actual accomplished results is a business problem. This type of issue can’t be solved with more marketing. For example, if your message isn’t connecting with the intended audience, saying it louder or more frequently isn’t going to fix anything. You’ve heard the saying “putting lipstick on a pig,” right? Well, dressing up your business with marketing when the inherent problem is much deeper than that won’t do a thing.
Marketing Problem: If you don’t have a business problem inhibiting your efforts from being effective, then you most likely have a marketing problem. This type of issue can be defined as any factors in a campaign that affect the results you may be looking for, like a lack of strategy, a bad understanding of your target audience or unengaging social media posts. These are the types of problems that we’re going to discuss today.

So, what are the most common types of marketing or advertising challenges? Here are a few examples that many companies experience:

Recruiting Talent

During the shutdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses had to adjust how they run their business , and marketing was no different. Now that the recovery and revival of “normal” is taking place, some agencies have found that hiring and keeping employees is a difficult task to undertake. The HR managers put much effort to make team extension as quality and profitable for their business as possible.

Talented marketers are often in high demand, making recruiting and maintaining an accomplished staff an issue. Many marketing professionals have found ways to offer their staff benefits and positive work experiences including more flexibility, educational opportunities and higher salaries.

Lack of Clear Strategy

About 50% of companies using digital marketing have no plan or strategy in place for their efforts. This is a problem because if you don’t know why and how you’re doing something, it will most likely not yield helpful or beneficial results. Having a plan of attack for all things, from email marketing and content creation to website design and social media, will enable you to make informed decisions and will most likely deliver you the outcomes you’re hoping for.

With a marketing strategy you can:

Find your target demographic.
Create SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) goals.
Keep your team on the same page.
Be timely.
Make your brand more authentic.
Ensure brand awareness.

No Alignment With Buyer Personas

If marketers don’t know who they’re creating content for, then it will be difficult to effectively communicate with them. No industry is the same, meaning that every audience that is being targeted has specific needs that should be met, and tones of voice and language choices that resonate with them. If you aim at nothing, you’re sure to hit it.

Another common sector of buyer persona problems is shooting for the wrong group of people. Trustmary found that 80% of content marketing is targeted at the wrong audience . Basically, a marketing team could have the best possible creative work to send out, and a great marketing plan to execute, but if it’s given to the wrong people, it won’t land properly.

Showing ROI

Often, when a company experiences financial hardships, the first thing to be cut is marketing spend. The reason for this might be that proving its value can be difficult without specific tactics in place to do so. Hubspot’s State of Marketing Report found that demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) of marketing activities to be the No. 1 roadblock for marketers .

When done correctly, marketing does offer a boundless supply of benefits for companies. But if you can’t specify what the impacts of advertising efforts like market research, email campaigns or social media marketing are to upper management or clients, it’s going to be difficult to continue producing quality work.

You have probably found yourself knee-deep in one of the situations above, but there are solutions to these problems. Continue reading to learn what you can do to help yourself and your clients get the results you’re hoping to achieve.

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Effective Solutions for Bumps in the Road

For every marketing problem, there’s a solution. Some issues might take more effort than others, but all fixes require strategic thinking and research to fully understand where the problem stems and what the best steps forward are. Let’s look specifically at the challenges we listed above:

How to Fix Your Recruiting Practices

There are loads of ways to make your current employees happy as well as bring in new talent, but we’re just going to talk about a few. First, ensure your marketing team is heard and satisfied by adding feedback channels in the workplace. This could be a digital platform that collects remarks, or could be a physical version in your office. Either way, make sure your employees know their thoughts are valued by actually giving them the ability to share.

Word of mouth is everything nowadays. If your employees share that they’re happy on social media platforms like LinkedIn, or if they speak positively about your company with their friends and family, more people will be prone to apply to your open positions. And, you’ve hired your team for a reason — pay attention to who they think would be a good fit for the business.

Creating a Clear Strategy

A set strategy is vital for consistent and effective marketing, but that doesn’t mean it’s a breeze to build. Let’s break down the process for creating a marketing strategy :

Define Your Goals: Have your target objectives in mind before you start creating any advertising content. This can make sure your hard work is going to serve a specific purpose and will help you have an end goal to aim for.
Think of Your Audience: Understand and highlight who it is that you’re trying to reach. Every industry and type of business speaks to very unique people, meaning that your marketing initiatives must work for your target audience. Create buyer personas to help you visualize the set group of customers as you work.
Build Brand Messaging: Since you’re speaking to your specific audience, ensure that they can recognize and pick out your brand from the competition using a set tone and voice.
Research Your Competitors: You should never ever copy what your competitors are doing — you bring a unique voice to the market. But, it’s smart to pay attention to what other brands are bringing to the table.

Once you go through the process of creating your marketing strategy, you’re off to the races!

Mending Your Buyer Personas

Finding a solution for your either lack of or incorrect target audience comes from having a clear marketing strategy, which we’ll get into more later. After you create your strategy for all marketing and advertising efforts, you should understand who it is that you’re trying to reach. With that knowledge, you can ask yourself the following questions before creating any content:

Is my customer really interested in this?
Will they actually care about this topic or information?
What needs am I meeting or problems am I solving for my target audience?
Is there a better way that I could connect with my audience?

If you’re confident in your answer, go ahead and interact with your buyers! And if you’re not? It may help to create buyer personas — model people who match your ideal customers. Give him or her a name, a detailed description and think about them every time you’re working on a component of your marketing. This can help you cut generalizations about who you’re creating content for, and be more specific and focused on the right group of people. Then you can create inbound marketing to attract these people and build more brand loyalty.

Better Prove Your ROI

Your digital marketing efforts should be full circle, meaning that you should always end up with actual results and data that you can either determine successful or not. Without the power of marketing and sales working together, it’s really difficult to calculate ROI. Discover how much impact your content actually had on your target audience by looking at data points like impressions, qualified leads, web traffic, conversion rates and actual sales. After checking over the relevant information, compare those numbers to the specific goals that you’d made prior to creating the content.

Did you meet your objectives like you’d hoped? We hope so! Either way, it’s time to put those numbers into a dashboard that can be easily displayed and read by your clients or upper management. By showing the impact of the advertising procedures you followed throughout the project timeline, you’re better able to discuss and prove the work was worth it and made a difference for your clients.

Maybe none of these issues are things that you’ve experienced — so you think. But what if problems are occurring that you’re unaware of? If that’s the case, you could be losing money or potential customer partnerships without even knowing it. Want to learn more about how to know if you’re flying blindly into challenges? You’ve come to the right place.

Tell-Tale Signs That You’re Experiencing Issues

We sincerely hope your marketing efforts are going well, but if they’re not, we want you to be aware. Here are some common red flags that you may be missing with your current advertising:

Email Unsubscribes: This happens pretty normally, but not at alarmingly high rates. If you’ve had a drop-off in subscriber numbers, it’s probably because the content may be irrelevant or targeted toward the wrong people. This could also be a sign to check in on your email marketing platform to ensure your leads and contacts are being handled correctly.
Wrong Audience: Have people been clicking on your organic listings without converting? Maybe it’s time to reassess your messaging and brand personas.
Ad-Heavy: We’ll say it very loudly: Paid advertising isn’t bad! But, if you’re solely relying on it to be noticed by any members of your audience, then you should consider creating meaningful content that can draw more organic traffic to your brand.
Losing Followers: Similar to email subscribers, if you’re seeing a large dip in social media followers lately, it could be smart to reassess your social media marketing strategy. Although this is a common marketing problem, it can be more serious than some understand.

How Strategy Can Safeguard Your Marketing Practices

We’ve talked a lot about strategy, and that’s because it’s super important to find success with your brand.

To ensure your marketing is strategic, you must create goals that your efforts can adhere to. And, to pinpoint objectives you need to do a bit of research. Here are the key elements of a brand strategy:

Value Proposition: A simple statement that summarizes why a customer would choose your product or service over the competition.
Key Brand Messaging: Set tone, language and values that articulate how your brand sounds and speaks to your audience.
Target Customers: The specific audience that your product or service is aiming to please, as well as the competition that you’re battling.

Also described as the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. Having these factors defined can help your team align to achieve specific goals, tie your efforts to business objectives, identity and test what resonates with your target audience and helps you stay up-to-date and capitalize on emerging technological and cultural trends.

Although these marketing problems are common, they don’t have to be inevitable. Avoid the above issues (and any unlisted situations) and find success by efficiently recruiting, defining your strategy, targeting the right people and proving your ROI.

Madelyn Gardner

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Madelyn Gardner is a content writer based in Nashville, Tennessee. Off the clock, she loves being outside, hiking, reading, baking and eating Mexican food — specifically burritos.

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How to Use a Problem Solving Marketing Approach

by Robert Brinkman | Nov 20, 2018 | Marketing

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Creative skills aren’t just for artists and designers! Everyone can learn to be more creative. In fact, the ability to think creatively is an invaluable skill in today’s workplace.

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When it comes to tackling specific workplace difficulties, you will be introduced to a six-step method you can use to solve problems. And you’ll learn about the skills you need to cultivate in order to be an effective problem-solver.

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How to Identify & Solve Your Business Problems Using Market Research

by Caitlin Stewart , on June 19, 2014

Problem-Identification Research

By conducting new market research projects in your company, you might discover a potential dilemma or opportunity that you have not considered before. You could discover any of the following factors through problem-identification research:

Brand Image : your customers’ perceptions of your brand. It’s extremely important to be aware of how customers view your company. Determining which strategies you want to use to positively influence your brand image can be done through researching your consumers’ current perceptions and what they want from your company.
Market Characteristics : the characteristics of your target market . You need to consider all aspects that drive your different customers to purchase. Your customers on the west coast are going to have different purchasing behaviors than those from the east coast. Recognizing these differences between subcultures, and meeting the needs of those differences, will help your business’ marketing strategies succeed.
Market Potential : an estimate of your product’s potential profit. If you research how consumers might react to advertising or price changes in your product before you take action, you will be better prepared and market to your consumers more accurately.
Market Share : percent of total product sales compared to your competitors. Market share gives you an estimate of the amount of market your company holds and can give you an idea of how you compare to your competitors . It also can reveal some of your competitors' capabilities and strengths, so you can develop an appropriate strategy.

Problem-Solving Research

Once you identify your marketing problem, you need to research how to solve it. The following research options will help you solve potential problems or capitalize on opportunities identified by your company:

Distribution Research : determining where your product should be sold and how to get it there. Distribution Research helps you plan the best way to get your product from the manufacturer to the retail shelf. In addition to deciding which retailers should carry your product, you should determine where your inventory will be held.
Market Segmentation : Grouping customers by similar backgrounds or similar purchase behaviors. Utilizing problem-solving research can determine how to most accurately accomplish this and even how to design advertisements to attract those groups. You will need to collect both qualitative and quantitative data to accurately understand your market segments.
Pricing Research : determining the ideal price for your product. Setting the price for your product is one of the most important marketing steps. You need to keep the customer in mind as well as remember that the main goal is to maximize your profits. Consider whether or not customers can be gained through lower prices. Can you maximize profit through increasing price? How sensitive will your customers be if you begin slightly increasing price? All aspects need to be well thought-out. Researching customer’s reactions to price sensitivity is essential.
Product Research : testing your new or revised products or completing test marketing. Researching secondary data or observing how your products will be used can allow you to effectively compete in the market. Testing different components can identify new products or discover ways to modify existing products, for example, updating a product to compete with newer products.
Promotional Research : following up with the effectiveness of your advertising strategies . If your company is using advertisements, there are factors you need to be checking up on. Unless you are evaluating your advertising budget, if your ads are useful in both retaining and gaining customers and researching what type of ads (online, commercial or print) are most effective, you truly cannot know whether you’re wasting your company’s money.

Using research for problem identification and problem solving is essential when you want to make your company the best in its market. Classifying your problem should always come before attempting to solve them. Otherwise, you might be spending money to solve the wrong problem.

The Importance of Market Research for Validation and Decision Making

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4.3: Buyer behavior as problem solving

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Consumer behavior refers to buyers who are purchasing for personal, family, or group use. Consumer behavior can be thought of as the combination of efforts and results related to the consumer's need to solve problems. Consumer problem solving is triggered by the identification of some unmet need. A family consumes all of the milk in the house or the tires on the family care wear out or the bowling team is planning an end-of-the-season picnic. This presents the person with a problem which must be solved. Problems can be viewed in terms of two types of needs: physical (such as a need for food) or psychological (for example, the need to be accepted by others).

Although the difference is a subtle one, there is some benefit in distinguishing between needs and wants. A need is a basic deficiency given a particular essential item. You need food, water, air, security, and so forth. A want is placing certain personal criteria as to how that need must be fulfilled. Therefore, when we are hungry, we often have a specific food item in mind. Consequently, a teenager will lament to a frustrated parent that there is nothing to eat, standing in front of a full refrigerator. Most of marketing is in the want-fulfilling business, not the need-fulfilling business. Timex does not want you to buy just any watch, they want you to want a Timex brand watch. Likewise, Ralph Lauren wants you to want Polo when you shop for clothes. On the other hand, the American Cancer Association would like you to feel a need for a check-up and does not care which doctor you go to. In the end, however, marketing is mostly interested in creating and satisfying wants.

The decision process

Exhibit 10 outlines the process a consumer goes through in making a purchase decision. Each step is illustrated in the following sections of your text. Once the process is started, a potential buyer can withdraw at any stage of making the actual purchase. The tendency for a person to go through all six stages is likely only in certain buying situations—a first time purchase of a product, for instance, or when buying high priced, long-lasting, infrequently purchased articles. This is referred to as complex decision making .

For many products, the purchasing behavior is a routine affair in which the aroused need is satisfied in a habitual manner by repurchasing the same brand. That is, past reinforcement in learning experiences leads directly to buying, and thus the second and third stages are bypassed. This is called simple decision making . However, if something changes appreciably (price, product, availability, services), the buyer may re-enter the full decision process and consider alternative brands. Whether complex 0r simple, the first step is need identification. 1.

Need identification

Whether we act to resolve a particular problem depends upon two factors: (1) the magnitude of the discrepancy between what we have and what we need, and (2) the importance of the problem. A consumer may desire a new Cadillac and own a five-year-old Chevrolet. The discrepancy may be fairly large but relatively unimportant compared to the other problems he/she faces. Conversely, an individual may own a car that is two years old and running very well. Yet, for various reasons, he/she may consider it extremely important to purchase a car this year. People must resolve these types of conflicts before they can proceed. Otherwise, the buying process for a given product stops at this point, probably in frustration.

Once the problem is recognized it must be defined in such a way that the consumer can actually initiate the action that will bring about a relevant problem solution. Note that, in many cases, problem recognition and problem definition occur simultaneously, such as a consumer running out of toothpaste. Consider the more complicated problem involved with status and image–how we want others to see us. For example, you may know that you are not satisfied with your appearance, but you may not be able to define it any more precisely than that. Consumers will not know where to begin solving their problem until the problem is adequately defined.

Marketers can become involved in the need recognition stage in three ways. First they need to know what problems consumers are facing in order to develop a marketing mix to help solve these problems. This requires that they measure problem recognition. Second, on occasion, marketers want to activate problem recognition. Public service announcements espousing the dangers of cigarette smoking is an example. Weekend and night shop hours are a response of retailers to the consumer problem of limited weekday shopping opportunities. This problem has become particularly important to families with two working adults. Finally, marketers can also shape the definition of the need or problem. If a consumer needs a new coat, does he define the problem as a need for inexpensive covering, a way to stay warm on the coldest days, a garment that will last several years, warm cover that will not attract odd looks from his peers, or an article of clothing that will express his personal sense of style? A salesperson or an ad may shape his answers.

Information search and processing

After a need is recognized, the prospective consumer may seek information to help identify and evaluate alternative products, services, and outlets that will meet that need. Such information can come from family, friends, personal observation, or other sources, such as Consumer Reports , salespeople, or mass media. The promotional component of the marketers offering is aimed at providing information to assist the consumer in their problem solving process. In some cases, the consumer already has the needed information based on past purchasing and consumption experience. Bad experiences and lack of satisfaction can destroy repeat purchases. The consumer with a need for tires may look for information in the local newspaper or ask friends for recommendation. If he has bought tires before and was satisfied, he may go to the same dealer and buy the same brand.

Information search can also identify new needs. As a tire shopper looks for information, she may decide that the tires are not the real problem, that the need is for a new car. At this point, the perceived need may change triggering a new informational search.

Information search involves mental as well as the physical activities that consumers must perform in order to make decisions and accomplish desired goals in the marketplace. It takes time, energy, money, and can often involve foregoing more desirable activities. The benefits of information search, however, can outweigh the costs. For example, engaging in a thorough information search may save money, improve quality of selection, or reduce risks. As noted in the integrated marketing box, the Internet is a valuable information source.

Information processing

When the search actually occurs, what do people do with the information? How do they spot, understand, and recall information? In other words, how do they process information? This broad topic is important for understanding buyer behavior in general as well as effective communication with buyers in particular, and it has received a great deal of study. Assessing how a person processes information is not an easy task. Often observation has served as the basis. Yet there are many theories as to how the process takes place. One widely accepted theory proposes a five-step sequence. 2.

• Exposure . Information processing starts with the exposure of consumers to some source of stimulation such as watching television, going to the supermarket, or receiving direct mail advertisements at home. In order to start the process, marketers must attract consumers to the stimulus or put it squarely in the path of people in the target market.

• Attention . Exposure alone does little unless people pay attention to the stimulus. At any moment, people are bombarded by all sorts of stimuli, but they have a limited capacity to process this input. They must devote mental resources to stimuli in order to process them; in other words, they must pay attention. Marketers can increase the likelihood of attention by providing informational cues that are relevant to the buyer.

• Perception . Perception involves classifying the incoming signals into meaningful categories, forming patterns, and assigning names or images to them. Perception is the assignment of meaning to stimuli received through the senses. (More will be said about perception later.)

• Retention . Storage of information for later reference, or retention, is the fourth step of the information-processing sequence. Actually, the role of retention or memory in the sequence is twofold. First, memory holds information while it is being processed throughout the sequence. Second, memory stores information for future, long-term use. Heavy repetition and putting a message to music are two things marketers do to enhance retention.

• Retrieval and application . The process by which information is recovered from the memory storehouse is called retrieval . Application is putting that information into the right context. If the buyer can retrieve relevant information about a product, brand, or store, he or she will apply it to solve a problem or meet a need.

Variations in how each step is carried out in the information-processing sequence also occur. Especially influential is the degree of elaboration. Elaborate processing, also called central processing, involves active manipulation of information. A person engaged in elaborate processing pays close attention to a message and thinks about it; he or she develops thoughts in support of or counter to the information received. In contrast, nonelaborate, or peripheral, processing involves passive manipulation of information 3. It is demonstrated by most airline passengers while a flight attendant reads preflight safety procedures. This degree of elaboration closely parallels the low-involvement, high-involvement theory, and the same logic applies.

Identification and evaluation of alternatives

After information is secured and processed, alternative products, services, and outlets are identified as viable options. The consumer evaluates these alternatives, and, if financially and psychologically able, makes a choice. The criteria used in evaluation varies from consumer to consumer just as the needs and information sources vary. One consumer may consider price most important while another puts more weight upon quality or convenience.

The search for alternatives and the methods used in the search are influenced by such factors as: (a) time and money costs; (b) how much information the consumer already has; (c) the amount of the perceived risk if a wrong selection is made; and (d) the consumer's pre-disposition toward particular choices as influenced by the attitude of the individual toward choice behavior. That is, there are individuals who find the selection process to be difficult and disturbing. For these people there is a tendency to keep the number of alternatives to a minimum, even if they have not gone through an extensive information search to find that their alternatives appear to be the very best. On the other hand, there are individuals who feel it necessary to collect a long list of alternatives. This tendency can appreciably slow down the decision-making function.

Product/service/outlet selection

The selection of an alternative, in many cases ,will require additional evaluation. For example, a consumer may select a favorite brand and go to a convenient outlet to make a purchase. Upon arrival at the dealer, the consumer finds that the desired brand is out-of-stock. At this point, additional evaluation is needed to decide whether to wait until the product comes in, accept a substitute, or go to another outlet. The selection and evaluation phases of consumer problem solving are closely related and often run sequentially, with outlet selection influencing product evaluation, or product selection influencing outlet evaluation.

The purchase decision

After much searching and evaluating, or perhaps very little, consumers at some point have to decide whether they are going to buy. Anything marketers can do to simplify purchasing will be attractive to buyers. In their advertising marketers could suggest the best size for a particular use, or the right wine to drink with a particular food. Sometimes several decision situations can be combined and marketed as one package. For example, travel agents often package travel tours.

To do a better marketing job at this stage of the buying process, a seller needs to know answers to many questions about consumers' shopping behavior. For instance, how much effort is the consumer willing to spend in shopping for the product? What factors influence when the consumer will actually purchase? Are there any conditions that would prohibit or delay purchase? Providing basic product, price, and location information through labels, advertising, personal selling, and public relations is an obvious starting point. Product sampling, coupons, and rebates may also provide an extra incentive to buy.

Actually determining how a consumer goes through the decision-making process is a difficult research task. As indicated in the Newsline box, there are new research methods to better assess this behavior.

Postpurchase behavior

All the behavior determinants and the steps of the buying process up to this point are operative before or during the time a purchase is made. However, a consumer's feelings and evaluations after the sale are also significant to a marketer, because they can influence repeat sales and also influence what the customer tells others about the product or brand.

Keeping the customer happy is what marketing is all about. Nevertheless, consumers typically experience some postpurchase anxiety after all but the most routine and inexpensive purchases. This anxiety reflects a phenomenon called cognitive dissonance . According to this theory, people strive for consistency among their cognitions (knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, values). When there are inconsistencies, dissonance exists, which people will try to eliminate. In some cases, the consumer makes the decision to buy a particular brand already aware of dissonant elements. In other instances, dissonance is aroused by disturbing information that is received after the purchase 4. The marketer may take specific steps to reduce postpurchase dissonance. Advertising that stresses the many positive attributes or confirms the popularity of the product can be helpful. Providing personal reinforcement has proven effective with big-ticket items such as automobiles and major appliances. Salespeople in these areas may send cards or may even make personal calls in order to reassure customers about their purchase.

Capsule 8: Review

Influencing factors of consumer behavior

While the decision-making process appears quite standardized, no two people make a decision in exactly the same way. As individuals, we have inherited and learned a great many behavioral tendencies: some controllable, some beyond our control. Further, the ways in which all these factors interact with one another ensures uniqueness. Although it is impossible for a marketer to react to the particular profile of a single consumer, it is possible to identify factors that tend to influence most consumers in predictable ways.

The factors that influence the consumer problem-solving process are numerous and complex. For example, the needs of men and women are different in respect to cosmetics; the extent of information search for a low-income person would be much greater when considering a new automobile as opposed to a loaf of bread; a consumer with extensive past purchasing experience in a product category might well approach the problem differently from one with no experience. Such influences must be understood to draw realistic conclusions about consumer behavior.

For purpose of discussion, it may be helpful to group these various influences into related sets. Exhibit 11 provides such a framework. Situational, external, and internal influences are shown as having an impact on the consumer problem solving process. Situation influences include the consumer's immediate buying task, the market offerings that are available to the consumer, and demographic traits. Internal influences relate to the consumer's learning and socialization, motivation and personality, and lifestyle. External influences deal with factors outside the individual that have a strong bearing on personal behaviors. Current purchase behavior is shown as influencing future behavior through the internal influence of learning. Let us now turn to the nature and potential impact of each of these sets of influences on consumer problem solving. Exhibit 11 focuses on the specific elements that influence the consumer's decision to purchase and evaluate products and services.

Situational influences

Buying task

The nature of the buying task has considerable impact on a customer's approach to solving a particular problem. When a decision involves a low-cost item that is frequently purchased, such as bread, the buying process is typically quick and routinized. A decision concerning a new car is quite different. The extent to which a decision is considered complex or simple depends on (a) whether the decision is novel or routine, and on (b) the extent of the customers' involvement with the decision. A great deal of discussion has revolved around this issue of involvement. High-involvement decisions are those that are important to the buyer. Such decisions are closely tied to the consumer's ego and self-image. They also involve some risk to the consumer; financial risk (highly priced items), social risk (products important to the peer group), or psychological risk (the wrong decision might cause the consumer some concern and anxiety). In making these decisions, it is worth the time and energies to consider solution alternatives carefully. A complex process of decision making is therefore more likely for high involvement purchases. Low-involvement decisions are more straightforward, require little risk, are repetitive, and often lead to a habit: they are not very important to the consumer 5. Financial, social, and psychological risks are not nearly as great. In such cases, it may not be worth the consumer's time and effort to search for information about brands or to consider a wide range of alternatives. A low involvement purchase therefore generally entails a limited process of decision making. The purchase of a new computer is an example of high involvement, while the purchase of a hamburger is a low-involvement decision.

When a consumer has bought a similar product many times in the past, the decision making is likely to be simple, regardless of whether it is a high-or low-involvement decision. Suppose a consumer initially bought a product after much care and involvement, was satisfied, and continued to buy the product. The customer's careful consideration of the product and satisfaction has produced brand loyalty, which is the result of involvement with the product decision.

Once a customer is brand-loyal, a simple decision-making process is all that is required for subsequent purchases. The consumer now buys the product through habit, which means making a decision without the use of additional information or the evaluation of alternative choices.

Market offerings

Another relevant set of situational influences on consumer problem solving is the available market offerings. The more extensive the product and brand choices available to the consumer, the more complex the purchase decision process is likely to be.

For example, if you already have purchased or are considering purchasing a DVD (digital versatile disc), you know there are many brands to choose from—Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, and Sanyo, to name several. Each manufacturer sells several models that differ in terms of some of the following features–single or multiple event selection, remote control (wired or wireless), slow motion, stop action, variable-speed scan, tracking control, and so on. What criteria are important to you? Is purchasing a DVD an easy decision? If a consumer has a need that can be met by only one product or one outlet in the relevant market, the decision is relatively simple. Either purchase the product or let the need go unmet.

This is not ideal from the customer's perspective, but it can occur. For example, suppose you are a student on a campus in a small town many miles from another marketplace. Your campus and town has only one bookstore. You need a textbook for class; only one specific book will do and only one outlet has the book for sale. The limitation on alternative market offerings can clearly influence your purchase behavior.

As you saw in the DVD example, when the extent of market offerings increases, the complexity of the problem-solving process and the consumers' need for information also increases. A wider selection of market offerings is better from the customer's point of view, because it allows them to tailor their purchases to their specific needs. However, it may confuse and frustrate the consumer so that less-than-optimal choices are made.

Demographic influences

An important set of factors that should not be overlooked in attempting to understand and respond to consumers is demographics. Such variables as age, sex, income, education, marital status, and mobility can all have significant influence on consumer behavior. One study showed that age and education have strong relationships to store selection by female shoppers. This was particularly true for women's suits or dresses, linens and bedding, cosmetics, and women's sportswear.

DeBeers Limited, which has an 80 per cent share of the market for diamonds used in engagement rings, employed a consumer demographic profile in developing their promotional program. Their target market consists of single women and men between the ages of 18 and 24. They combined this profile with some lifestyle aspects to develop their promotional program.

People in different income brackets also tend to buy different types of products and different qualities. Thus various income groups often shop in very different ways. This means that income can be an important variable in defining the target group. Many designer clothing shops, for example, aim at higher-income shoppers, while a store like Kmart appeals to middle-and lower-income groups.

External influences

External factors are another important set of influences on consumer behavior. Among the many societal elements that can affect consumer problem solving are culture, social class, reference groups, and family.

A person's culture is represented by a large group of people with a similar heritage. The American culture, which is a subset of the Western culture, is of primary interest here. Traditional American culture values include hard work, thrift, achievement, security, and the like. Marketing strategies targeted to those with such a cultural heritage should show the product or service as reinforcing these traditional values. The three components of culture-beliefs, values, and customs-are each somewhat different. A belief is a proposition that reflects a person's particular knowledge and assessment of something (that is, "I believe that ..."). Values are general statements that guide behavior and influence beliefs. The function of a value system is to help a person choose between alternatives in everyday life.

Customs are overt modes of behavior that constitute culturally approved ways of behaving in specific situations. For example, taking one's mother out for dinner and buying her presents for Mother's Day is an American custom that Hallmark and other card companies support enthusiastically.

The American culture with its social values can be divided into various subcultures. For example, African-Americans constitute a significant American subculture in most US cities. A consumer's racial heritage can exert an influence on media usage and various other aspects of the purchase decision process.

Social class

Social class , which is determined by such factors as occupation, wealth, income, education, power, and prestige, is another societal factor that can affect consumer behavior. The best-known classification system includes upper-upper, lower-upper, upper-middle, lower-middle, upper-lower, and lower-lower class. Lower-middle and upper-lower classes comprise the mass market.

The upper-upper class and lower-upper class consist of people from wealthy families who are locally prominent. They tend to live in large homes furnished with art and antiques. They are the primary market for rare jewelry and designer originals, tending to shop at exclusive retailers. The upper-middle class is made up of professionals, managers, and business owners. They are ambitious, future-oriented people who have succeeded economically and now seek to enhance their quality of life. Material goods often take on major symbolic meaning for this group. They also tend to be very civic-minded and are involved in many worthy causes. The lower-middle class consists of mid-level white-collar workers. These are office workers, teachers, small business people and the like who typically hold strong American values. They are family-oriented, hard-working individuals. The upper-lower class is made up of blue-collar workers such as production line workers and service people. Many have incomes that exceed those of the lower-middle class, but their values are often very different. They tend to adopt a short-run, live-for-the-present philosophy. They are less future-oriented than the middle classes. The lower-lower class consists of unskilled workers with low incomes. They are more concerned with necessities than with status or fulfillment.

People in the same social class tend to have similar attitudes, live in similar neighborhoods, dress alike, and shop at the same type stores. If a marketer wishes to target efforts toward the upper classes, then the market offering must be designed to meet their expectations in terms of quality, service, and atmosphere. For example, differences in leisure concerts are favored by members of the middle and upper classes, while fishing, bowling, pool, and drive-in movies are more likely to involve members of the lower social classes.

Reference groups

Do you ever wonder why Pepsi used Shaquille O'Neal in their advertisements? The teen market consumes a considerable amount of soft drinks. Pepsi has made a strong effort to capture a larger share of this market, and felt that Shaquille represented the spirit of today's teens. Pepsi is promoted as "the choice of a new generation" and Shaquille is viewed as a role model by much of that generation. Pepsi has thus employed the concept of reference groups.

A reference group helps shape a person's attitudes and behaviors. Such groups can be either formal or informal. Churches, clubs, schools, notable individuals, and friends can all be reference groups for a particular consumer. Reference groups are characterized as having individuals who are opinion leaders for the group. Opinion leaders are people who influence others. They are not necessarily higher-income or better educated, but perhaps are seen as having greater expertise or knowledge related to some specific topic. For example, a local high school teacher may be an opinion leader for parents in selecting colleges for their children. These people set the trend and others conform to the expressed behavior. If a marketer can identify the opinion leaders for a group in the target market, then effort can be directed toward attracting these individuals. For example, if an ice cream parlor is attempting to attract the local high school trade, opinion leaders at the school may be very important to its success.

The reference group can influence an individual in several ways 6. :

• Role expectations: The role assumed by a person is nothing more than a prescribed way of behaving based on the situation and the person's position in the situation. Your reference group determines much about how this role is to be performed. As a student, you are expected to behave in a certain basic way under certain conditions.

• Conformity: Conformity is related to our roles in that we modify our behavior in order to coincide with group norms. Norms are behavioral expectations that are considered appropriate regardless of the position we hold.

• Group communications through opinion leaders: We, as consumers, are constantly seeking out the advice of knowledgeable friends or acquaintances who can provide information, give advice, or actually make the decision. For some product categories, there are professional opinion leaders who are quite easy to identify–e.g. auto mechanics, beauticians, stock brokers, and physicians.

One of the most important reference groups for an individual is the family. A consumer's family has a major impact on attitude and behavior. The interaction between husband and wife and the number and ages of children in the family can have a significant effect on buying behavior.

One facet in understanding the family's impact on consumer behavior is identifying the decision maker for the purchase in question. In some cases, the husband is dominant, in others the wife or children, and still others, a joint decision is made. The store choice for food and household items is most often the wife's. With purchases that involve a larger sum of money, such as a refrigerator, a joint decision is usually made. The decision on clothing purchases for teenagers may be greatly influenced by the teenagers themselves. Thus, marketers need to identify the key family decision maker for the product or service in question.

Another aspect of understanding the impact of the family on buying behavior is the family lifecycle . Most families pass through an orderly sequence of stages. These stages can be defined by a combination of factors such as age, marital status,and parenthood. The typical stages are:

• The bachelor state; young, single people.

• Newly married couples; young, no children.

• The full nest I and II; young married couples with dependent children:

• Youngest child under six (Full nest I)

• Youngest child over six (Full nest II)

• The full nest III; older married couples with dependent children.

• The empty nest I and II; older married couples with no children living with them:

• Adults in labor force (Empty nest I)

• Adults retired (Empty nest II)

• The solitary survivors; older single people:

• In labor force

• Retired

Each of these stages is characterized by different buying behaviors. For example, a children's clothing manufacturer would target its efforts primarily at the full nest I families. Thus, the family cycle can be helpful in defining the target customers.

Internal influences

Each customer is to some degree a unique problem solving unit. Although they can be grouped into meaningful segments, in order to fully appreciate the totality of the buying process, a marketer needs to examine the internal forces that influence consumers. They are learning/socialization, motivation and personality, and lifestyle.

Learning and socialization

As a factor influencing a person's perceptions, learning may be defined as changes in behavior resulting from previous experiences. However, learning does not include behavior changes attributable to instinctive responses, growth, or temporary states of the organism, such as hunger, fatigue, or sleep. It is clear that learning is an ongoing process that is dynamic, adaptive, and subject to change. Also, learning is an experience and practice that actually brings about changes in behavior. For example, in order to learn how to play tennis, you might participate in it to gain experience, be exposed to the different skills required, the rules, and so forth. However, the experience does not have to be an actual, physical one. It could be a conceptualization of a potential experience. In other words, you could learn to play tennis by reading about how to play without actually doing it. This is called nonexperiential learning .

Nonexperiential learning is particularly relevant in consumer behavior. For example, assume you are considering purchasing a bottle of Zinfandel wine. You ask the salesclerk what it tastes like, and he tells you it tastes like a strong ginger ale. Not liking the taste of ginger ale, you reject the purchase. Thus you have learned that you do not like Zinfandel wine without having a direct taste experience. A great deal of our learning is of this type. This may be one reason why marketers try to identify opinions leaders who in turn tell others in the market about the benefits of the product.

Another characteristic of learning is that the changes may be immediate or anticipated. In other words, just because we do not see immediate evidence that learning has taken place is no reason to assume that learning has not occurred. We can store our learning until it is needed, and frequently do this in terms of making purchase decisions. For example, we are willing to learn about many product attributes even though we do not expect to buy the product in the near future.

As new information is processed and stored over time, consumer learning takes place There are several theories of learning: one of the most useful to marketers is that of socialization. Socialization refers to the process by which persons acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that make them more or less able members of their society. The assumption made is that behavior is acquired and modified over the person's lifecycle.

The social learning approach stresses sources of influence–"socialization agents" (i.e. other people)–that transmit cognitive and behavioral patterns to the learner. In the case of consumer socialization, this takes place in the course of the person's interaction with other individuals in various social settings. Socialization agents might include any person, organization, or information source that comes into contact with the consumer.

Consumers acquire this information from the other individuals through the processes of modeling, reinforcement, and social interaction Modeling involves imitation of the agent's behavior. For example, a teenager may acquire a brand name preference for Izod from friends. Marketers can make use of this concept by employing spokespersons to endorse their products and services who have strong credibility with their target consumers, as in the case of Bill Cosby (Jell-O). Reinforcement involves either a reward or a punishment mechanism used by the agent. A parent may be reinforced by good product performance, excellent post-purchase services, or some similar rewarding experience. The social interaction mechanism is less specific as to the type of learning involved; it may include a combination of modeling and reinforcement. The social setting within which learning takes place can be defined in terms of variables such as social class, sex, and family size.

These variables can influence learning through their impact on the relationship between the consumer and others. It should be noted that an individual who promotes learning can be anyone—such as parent, friend, salesperson, or television spokesperson.

Motivation is a concept that is difficult to define. In fact, the difficulty of defining motives and dealing with motivation in consumer research accounts for its limited application. For the most part, the research in motivation involves benefit segmentation and patronage motives. Patronage motives typically concern the consumer's reasons for shopping at a particular outlet. Consumers are classified, for example, as price-conscious, convenience-oriented, service-oriented, or in terms of some other motivating feature.

A motive is the inner drive or pressure to take action to satisfy a need. To be motivated is to be a goal-oriented individual. Some goals are positive, some are negative, some individuals have a high level of goal orientation, some have a very low level. In all cases, the need must be aroused or stimulated to a high enough level so that it can serve as a motive. It is possible (and usual) to have needs that are latent (unstimulated) and that therefore do not serve as the motive of behavior. The sources of this arousal may be internal (people get hungry), environmental (you see an ad for a Big Mac), or psychological (just thinking about food can cause hunger). It is possible (and usual) to have needs that are latent (unstimulated) and that therefore do not serve as the motive of behavior.

For motivation to be useful in marketing practice, a marketing manager must understand what motives and behaviors are influenced by the specific situation in which consumers engage in goal-directed, problem-solving behavior.

Motivation flows from an unmet need, as does all consumer problem solving. Perhaps the best known theory dealing with individual motivation is provided in the work of A H Maslow. One of the most important parts of Maslow's theory is his development of a model consisting of several different levels of needs that exist in a human being and relate to each other via a "need hierarchy”. Maslow has differentiated between five levels of needs. The first of these concerns itself with physiological needs; that is, hunger, thirst, and other basic drives. All living beings, regardless of their level of maturity, possess physiological needs. Physiological needs are omnipresent and are of a recurrent nature7.

Safety and security needs are second in Maslow's hierarchy. The difference between physiological needs and safety and security needs is somewhat hazy. Safety and security imply a continued fulfillment of physiological needs. This is an extension of the more basic needs.

Third in Maslow's hierarchy of needs are the love needs. These are the needs for belonging and friendship. They involve a person's interaction with others. The fourth level of needs in Maslow's hierarchy is the esteem needs. These are needs related to feeling good about oneself and having a positive self-image.

The fifth and highest level in Maslow's needs hierarchy is the need for self-actualization or self-fulfillment. This need can be defined as the need of a person to reach his full potential in terms of the application of his own abilities and interest in functioning in his environment.

It is important in discussing these levels of Maslow's hierarchy to point out two additional factors. First, Maslow has clearly indicated that these five levels of needs operate on an unconscious level. That is, the individual is probably not aware of concentration upon one particular need or one assortment of needs. One of the misunderstandings associated with Maslow's theory is that he believes the five needs to be mutually exclusive. That, in fact, is not the intent of Maslow. To the contrary, several of these needs may occur simultaneously for any one individual; the relative importance of each need for any one individual determines the hierarchy involved.

When we attempt to integrate Maslow's needs hierarchy with the concept of segmentation, we can see that a manager might find certain subgroups that fit together because of some homogeneity of needs. For example, a marketer may target a group with strong self-esteem needs in designing a promotional program for cosmetics. Appeals to higher-order needs are important for many products and services, even basic commodities.

Personality is used to summarize all the traits of a person that make him/her unique. No two people have the same traits, but several attempts have been made to classify people with similar traits. Perhaps the best-known personality types are those proposed by Carl Jung, as is a variation on the work of his teacher, Sigmund Freud. His personality categories are introvert and extrovert . The introvert is described as defensive, inner-directed, and withdrawn from others. The extrovert is outgoing, other-directed, and assertive. Several other more elaborate classifications have also been devised.

Various personality types, like people with various motives, are likely to respond in different ways to different market offerings. For example, an extrovert may enjoy the shopping experience and rely more on personal observation to secure information; thus, in-store promotion would become an important communication tool. Knowing the basic personality traits of target customers can be useful information for the manager in designing the marketing mix. Marketers have, however, found personality to be difficult to apply in developing marketing strategy. The primary reason for this is the lack of good ways to measure personality traits. Most available measures were developed to identify people with problems that needed medical attention. These have little value with consumers who are mentally healthy. As a result, most marketers have turned to lifestyle analysis.

One of the newer and increasingly important set of factors that is being used to understand consumer behavior is lifestyle. Lifestyle has been generally defined as the attitudes, interests, and opinions of the potential customer. Such variables as interest in hunting, attitude toward the role of women in society, and opinion on the importance of dressing well can be used to better understand the market and its behavior.

It is the multifaceted aspect of lifestyle research that makes it so useful in consumer analysis. A prominent lifestyle researcher, Joseph T Plummer, summarizes the concept as follows:

...life style patterns, combines the virtues of demographics with the richness and dimensionality of psychological characteristics....Life style is used to segment the marketplace because it provides the broad, everyday view of consumers life style segmentation and can generate identifiable whole persons rather than isolated fragments. 8.

A useful application of the lifestyle concept relates to consumer's shopping orientation. Different customers approach shopping in very different ways. They have different attitudes and opinions about shopping and different levels of interest in shopping. Once people know their alternatives, how do they evaluate and choose among them? In particular, how do people choose among brands of a product? Current description of this process emphasizes the role of attitudes. An attitude is an opinion of a person, idea, place, or thing. Attitudes range based on a continuum from very negative to very positive. Traditionally, an attitude is broken down into three components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. That is, an attitude is first what we know/believe, followed by what we feel, and ending with an action. Thus, we have learned that a particular company has been polluting a local river; we feel very strongly that business should not do this and feel very angry; and we boycott the product made by that company.

A great deal of marketing strategy is based on the idea that the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of an attitude tend to be consistent. Thus, if it is possible to change what people believe about Yamaha CD players, their feelings and their actions may eventually change as well. However, this relationship among the three components of an attitude seems to be situation–or even product–specific. For example, attitudes tend to predict behavior better in high-involvement decisions. Thus, if someone has a strong attitude about wearing stylish clothes, then it is possible to predict that the person will restrict purchases to a particular set of brands. Furthermore, we do not react to products in isolation. The situation, or our attitude toward the situation, plays an important role in how well attitudes predict behavior. For example, assume that a consumer likes pizza but does not like Pizza Inn pizza. In a social setting where everyone wants to go to Pizza Inn for pizza, this person might eat this brand rather than not have pizza at all.

Despite limitations on the predictive power of attitudes, attitudes can help us understand how choices are made. However, we need to carefully assess the validity of the attitude-behavior relationships for each situation and product.

Capsule 9: Review

Given the hypothesis that attitudes influence buying behavior, how can a company bring its products and consumers' attitudes into a consistent state; that is, into a situation where consumers evaluate a given product or brand as satisfying their need? Marketers have two choices: either they can change consumers' attitudes to be consistent with their product, or they can change the product to match attitudes. It is easier to change the product than to change consumers' attitudes. Nevertheless, attitudes can sometimes be modified. Modifying attitudes might be the only reasonable choice, as when a firm is introducing a truly new product or an unusual new use for an existing one. Marketers should nevertheless face the fact that it is extremely difficult to change consumers' attitudes. If there is to be change, it is most likely to occur when people are open-minded in their beliefs or when an existing attitude is of weak intensity; that is, when there is little information to support the attitude or very little ego involvement on the individual's part. The stronger a person's loyalty to a certain brand, for example, the more difficult it is to change that attitude.

1. [1] Sources : Jennifer Gilbert, "New Teen Obsession," Advertising Age, February 14, 2000, p. 8; "School Daze," American Demographics, August 1999, p. 80; Krestina Filiciano, "Just Kidding," Adweek, May 1, 2000, p. 58.

2. [2] Sources : Joanne Gordon, "Shrink Rap," Fortune, February 7, 2000, pp. 110-111; Ronald B. Liebier, "Storytelling: A New Way to Get Close to the Customer," Fortune, February 3, 1997, pp. 102-105; Kendra Darko, "Zooming In On What's Important." American Demographics, August 1999, pp. 46-47.

9 Common Marketing Problems And How To Solve Them

Every marketing strategy is unique, just like each company is unique. But, regardless of the industry or company size, I hear the same few complaints over and over again from prospective clients.

We’re not getting enough traffic.

Our competitors are killing us.

We don’t have enough money for marketing.

Sound familiar? If you sell something, chances are you’ve run into at least one of the problems in this post.

I’m taking some of the most common challenges I help clients tackle and sharing the very best resources I know of to help you overcome them. Some are my own, some of from other experts in the field, but all of them will help you better understand the problem you’re having and what you might be able to do right now to solve it.

Problem #1: You’re Not Getting Enough Website Traffic

You can’t sell anything if you don’t have traffic, be it to your website or your brick-and-mortar store. It’s the most common complaint from new brands, but believe it or not it’s also a fairly frequent problem among established brands that are having trouble keeping up with the pace of technology.

Before you can do anything about your sales pipeline, you’ve gotta get some customers in it.

Website traffic tool suite Sumo has an awesome series of blog posts designed to help you take your website from 0 to 10,000 visitors per month. If you haven’t yet reached that milestone, these posts are an awesome place to start. Once you’ve crossed the 10K a month threshold, it gets a lot easier from there.

The posts are great because each writer shares his or her own formula for getting to 10K monthly visits, and none of them are alike. Here are three of my favorites from the series:

Growing a Site from 0 to 10k Visitors a Month: Sarah Peterson Edition

Sarah’s strategy centers around creating be-all, end-all content on your topic, kind of like what I am to do on this blog.

How To Grow Blog Traffic From 0 to 10k Visitors: Nat Eliason Edition

Nat’s strategy is built around becoming an online resource about your field, then creating a guest-posting strategy to gain eyeballs based on your expertise.

Growing a Site from 0 to 10k Visitors in a Month: Noah Kagan Edition

Entrepreneurial powerhouse Noah Kagan and his apprentice Julien grow a brand spanking new website to 10K monthly visits in a matter of months using networking, giveaways and interviews.

Problem #2: You’re Getting Traffic, But No One’s Buying

The saying goes “If you build it, they will come.” But no one ever promised they would buy!

This has to be hands-down one of the most frustrating problems in business, but it happens all the time. The interest is there, but the inclination to buy? Zilch.

How To Reduce 14 Friction Points In Your Checkout Process

It could be that you’re making your would-be customer jump through too many hoops before they finally hit the ‘Submit Order’ button. In this post, PCA Predict breaks down the top causes of friction in the checkout process—many of which you probably hadn’t thought of—and shows you how to fix them.

The Complete Guide To A/B Testing

Sometimes, all it takes is a few small tweaks to make a world of difference in your conversion rate. You’ll never know if you don’t tweak and test. This exhaustive guide from Visual Website Optimizer shows you how to run A/B tests (and what elements to test) to identify and improve your traffic-to-sales conversions.

Problem #3: There’s Too Much Competition

Very rarely is a business lucky enough to be the only one in its field. At a minimum, you’ll have at least a few strong competitors, and you might have a few dozen.

Competition isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though; it proves there’s a market for what you sell and forces you to innovate. It’s up to you to set yourself apart with your marketing.

The Riches are in the Niches: Why Appealing to Everybody, Means You’re Really Appealing to Nobody

The best way to differentiate yourself from the competition is to think smaller. Yes, really.

When you’re trying to sell to everyone , your marketing message won’t be relatable to anyone . Your customer is an individual, and speaking to their needs in a way your competitor can’t is a surefire way to win their business. Mish Slade does a great job illustrating this in the above article on Beliyf.

Useful Value Proposition Examples (and How to Create a Good One)

When I ask our clients how they’re different from their competition, they never say “we’re actually not different at all.” Instead, they rattle off a laundry list of things that make them unique, whether it’s their level of service, their personalization, or a materially superior product.

YOU know what makes you unique. Now show this to your target customer with a laser-focused value proposition. ConversionXL has an excellent guide on engineering your value proposition with actual examples of great (and not-so-great) ones from name brands.

Problem #4: You’re Attracting the Wrong Customer

When you’re talking to potential buyers, do you run into the same roadblocks over and over again? Maybe you keep coming across would-be customers that are just a little too young, a little too thrifty, a little too conservative, a little too whatever to actually buy from you. You’re attracting the wrong type of person.

How To Build Buyer Personas For Better Marketing

All those people coming to your website or walking in your door do you no good if they don’t need what you’re selling. Narrowing down your buyer personas before you ever hang that ‘Open for Business’ sign is a key component for converting the right types of people into paying customers. Shopify has an awesomely thorough guide with helpful questions to ask as you’re building your ideal buyer persona.

7 Steps to Convert Your Target Buyers With Content Offers

Once you’ve zeroed in on your buyer personas, you must create content offers that speak directly to their pain points. Content offers act as a fishing line to reel in warm leads, but they also act as a barrier to keep the wrong leads out.

The above guide from Spark Reaction takes you step-by-step through creating targeted content offers to narrow down the right customer.

Problem #5: People Seem Interested, But They’re Not Ready to Buy

You’re attracting the traffic, and they’re the right people, but when it’s time to swipe the credit card they’re just not ready to buy. It’s time to pay closer attention to your buyer’s journey: the process every customer goes through before making a purchase.

How to Create Content for Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

The buyer’s journey consists of three phases: Awareness, when the customer is gathering information about their problem; Consideration, when the customer is weighing options for what they might buy; and Decision, when they’re ready to pull the trigger on a purchase.

The guide above from the sales funnel experts at Hubspot explains how to create content for buyers at every phase in this journey, not just the decision phase. When you do this, you’ll have a strategy in place to manage and follow-up with those individuals who are interested, but not ready to buy just yet.

Problem #6: People Always Want A Discount

There are bargain shoppers and tire kickers in every industry. It’s not just you who’s dealing with them. The better question is why are you dealing with them?

Is it because you’re positioning yourself as a “bargain” choice? Or maybe your product just doesn’t seem worthy of the price to your customers. You’re not doing a good enough job of conveying its value.

3 Ways To Charge More for Your Products and Services

What’s the difference between a BMW 5 Series and a Toyota Camry? Well, when it comes to function, not much. But there’s a nearly 100% price difference between the two automobiles. As the guys at Crazyegg explain in the article above, the power of re-framing your products and services can’t be overstated.

6 Critical Ways to Show Value to Your Customer

You know your product is valuable, but you’re a bit biased. Are you proving that value to your customer?

From demonstrating outcomes to providing ongoing consumer education, the 6 value-building strategies outlined in this post will help you clearly demonstrate exactly what your customer is getting for his money—and why it’s so worthwhile.

Problem #7: You Don’t Know If Your Marketing Efforts Are Working

You’re throwing all this money into your marketing efforts, but is it paying off? If you’re not measuring your efforts and their results, you might as well take that pile of cash and set it on fire. Without good data, you can’t make informed decisions about your marketing.

3 Site Metrics You Absolutely Must Track

In this post, I break marketing data down into three baseline metrics: goals, traffic sources and search queries. If you’re just getting started with tracking and measuring your marketing campaigns, these three metrics are a great place to start.

A Simple Plan for Measuring the Marketing Effectiveness of Content

Okay, so tracking things like sales is pretty easy. But what about things that aren’t so cut and dry, like your content efforts? How do you determine the effectiveness of, say, a blog post or a social media campaign? Content Marketing Institute has an easy formula and worksheet for it in the post above.

Problem #8: You Don’t Have A Big Enough Marketing Budget

Feel like you need a bigger budget to “really” do marketing? You and everybody else, friend!

More dollars for marketing are always nice, but honestly, sometimes having a small budget is a good thing because it forces you to get creative and only focus on tactics that prove results.

Save Time and Double Your ROI: A Guide to Applying the 80/20 Rule to Your Marketing

It’s well-documented that in most results-driven situations, 20% of the efforts breed 80% of the results. It’s known as the Pareto Principle, and lucky for us, it also applies to marketing. In this insightful Quicksprout article, Neil Patel explains how to find and take advantage of that magic 20% in our marketing efforts.

Problem #9: You Need More Exposure

Maybe you’ve seen your competitors getting shoutouts from sites like Forbes or getting featured in the local newspaper. You want that kind of exposure, but you have no idea how they got it or maybe you think they just got lucky.

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Getting exposure and press coverage is no accident. Sure, sometimes you just get lucky, but most of the time it results from a planned and strategic approach to working with media. In my self-guided online course, I show you the exact steps I take to get media coverage for my clients, from the local news all the way up to The Wall Street Journal.

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How to become a strategic problem solver in 5 steps

Problem solving is an underrated talent. It helps you make clear decisions during turbulent, overwhelming times, and many experts identify it as a vital soft skill for job seekers post-pandemic .

To develop your problem-solving acumen, use a structured approach that focuses on the why, what, and how of your issue. Let’s break it down by asking five questions that will serve as a step-by-step guide.

Question 1: Why should I care about this problem?

Write a problem statement, which is a few short sentences describing an issue you’re facing that also affects your audience. Use specific, quantifiable details. Instead of, “We lose money each year due to quality issues,” a better statement would be, “In 2019, we lost $1 million due to quality errors. That’s 5% of our overall revenue.”

You don’t want to define a problem so big that you lack resources to solve it or get so specific that you miss the chance to have a greater impact. Also, avoid prematurely adding in a solution, like “We need to hire a quality assurance consultant.” Solutions come later.

Question 2: What does success look like?

Set an objective that defines what you want to achieve and key results to know when you’ve achieved it. Your objective should focus on a goal, not a solution. “Make our website an intuitive and enjoyable experience for visitors,” is an objective, but “Hire 5 UX designers,” is a solution. Then define measurable key results so you know for sure when you’ve achieved your goal. “Get increased click-throughs,” is vague, but you’ll know when you “Increase click-throughs by 30%.”

Question 3: How might I solve this problem?

Now it’s time to brainstorm potential solutions. Start by finding out as much as you can about your problem. Find out if there’s available research on problems like yours, and look to “parallel worlds” outside your industry where a similar issue has been addressed before.

If you’re holding a group brainstorm, choose one person as the moderator, and others as timekeeper and notetaker. Then brainstorm as many solutions as possible that might address your problem and help you reach your objective and key results. Tell everyone to be expansive in their thinking: Come up with both big and small ideas without self-editing.

Once you have a list of potential solutions, put them in a solution tree to help organise your goals and how you’ll get there (your strategy). Start by writing down your objective. For the sake of an easy example, let’s say your objective is “Increase product revenue.” Create branches from each objective that list solutions you brainstormed, like “Sell more of the same products,” and “Start selling new products.”

Solution tree

Think with Google

Share this page, question 4: how should i actually solve the problem.

A prioritisation map helps you winnow your ideas to decide in which ones you should invest effort. Make a graph with a vertical axis labeled “impact” and a horizontal axis labeled “effort.” Then plot out all your potential solutions on the graph.

Prioritisation map

High-impact and high-effort solutions will likely be the main focus of your work. Ones that are high impact and low effort are quick wins, and good for building stakeholder confidence. Low-impact and low-effort solutions should be deprioritised and only focused on when you have some free time. Low-impact and high-effort solutions are probably not worth your time.

Question 5: How can I take action?

Make a simple plan to solve your problem, avoiding unnecessary detail. You can use an action tracker, which can be a spreadsheet that breaks down who does what and when. In the first column, put all the actions that make up your problem-solving steps. In the second column, note who is responsible for each action and when it should be done.

Action tracker

Discuss and agree on task ownership and due dates with the people responsible so that everyone is on the same page. Share your action tracker with the group and regularly review it together to make sure due dates are met.

Remember that no matter how well you plan, things will change and your plan will have to change too. Be prepared to modify it so you can stay on track and achieve your goals.

Problem solving doesn’t need to be complicated. By following the right steps, you can avoid jumping into solution mode too quickly. Just think of the structure “why, what, and how,” and you’ll start to see your problems in a new way.

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8 Ways to Solve Prospects' Problems Through Your Marketing

Updated: August 26, 2017

Published: May 14, 2012

You're in business because you provide solutions. You've got answers. You're the (wo)man with the plan. Let's take a look at some of our customers, for example. AmeriFirst Home Mortgage helps home buyers find the right mortgage for them. In The News helps businesses memorialize their accomplishments with custom lamination and engraving. HubSpot helps marketers get an end-to-end view of their marketing activities to determine which channels provide the most ROI.

Notice how none of those explanations of what each company provides focused on the specific product or service? That's because the product or service isn't what makes a lead want to be your customer -- it's a solution to their problem that people care about. Your business is successful because it provides some solution, but if your campaigns seem to be flailing a bit, it may be because you haven't applied that problem-solving principle to your marketing.

Not yet, anyway. This post will give you plenty of ideas to implement that will make your marketing more solution-oriented. That way, your prospects see you as a helpful problem solver they actually like and trust ... not just a peddler of your product or service!

How to Inject Problem Solving Into Your Marketing

1) Create how-to blog content. As most inbound marketers know, success starts with content; so begin by writing blog posts that solve peoples' problems! If you'll allow me to get meta for a minute, this very blog post about how to be a problem solver is, well, solving a problem. People reading this presumably want to know how to inject more problem solving into their marketing, and this post is providing solutions to that problem. When writing your how-to blog content, focus on providing actionable advice. There's already a ton of content out there that says a lot without really saying anything at all. But you want your content to give you credibility and authority ; you can do that by making sure your reader walks away from the blog post with at least one thing he or she can do to be better.

2) Create lead gen offers that make people's lives easier. Helpful content doesn't end with blog posts, nor does successful marketing. You need to convert that blog traffic into leads, and if you've written some amazing content, your readers will probably want to learn more from you. Create lead gen content that will help your readers be more successful -- at work, at home, whatever it is your customers need. For example, HubSpot has released tons of ebooks that show marketers how to do something, like set up their Facebook page timeline , for instance. Or perhaps you'd like to create some templates for your audience, like we did with our downloadable leads waterfall graph that we encourage all marketers to use . If you're looking for some inspiration, we've written an entire guide to creating lead gen offers quickly .

3) Source problems to feed your content. I'm asking you to create all this content, but where will the topics come from? You should be speaking with the people on the front lines of your business on a daily basis -- employees working in Services, Support, and Sales hear questions from prospects and customers during every conversation. Ask all employees to document these questions and problems and send them your way to feed your solution-oriented content. And if any of them fancy themselves a writer, they can document their answers, too, for a guest spot on your blog! ( Tip: As you write this content, be sure to keep other departments in the know. Sales, Services, and Support should be equipped with an arsenal of content they can send to their prospects and customers that answers their questions. This will not only establish trust and authority between employees and your prospects and customers, but for Sales, it could shorten the buying cycle, too.)

4) Leverage the brainpower of your community. Part of being a helpful, solution-oriented marketer is connecting people with content that solves their problems ... regardless of the source. Look, nobody knows everything. You're surrounded by people that have data, research, insights, and experiences from which your audience would benefit. Tap into that brainpower, and be the one to share it with the rest of your community! We're doing this now, in fact, with our push for our social media community to contribute ideas for our next blog post.

Greatest list of marketing pet peeves - HubSpot

Not only is this an excellent way to build strong relationships with others in your industry, but it also shows that you're committed to providing answers for people regardless of the source.

5) Monitor and respond to social media inquiries. Speaking of social media, your active presence on social sites can contribute to your reputation as a thought leader, problem solver, and all around awesome business. This means more than just monitoring your Twitter stream for questions you can answer, though. Think outside of the box a bit! Visit places like LinkedIn Answers , Quora, and industry forums to see what problems people are having. Take a look at how HubSpotter Meghan Keaney Anderson improved both HubSpot's clout, and her own, by answering Scott's question on Quora. Take special note of how she linked back to a blog post HubSpot wrote that answers his question, too!

What is a content map - insights from HubSpot's product marketing manager

6) Optimize for long-tail search. Long-tail search is a critical component of any well-rounded SEO and content strategy, and it provides tremendous opportunity for marketers that are looking to be more solution-oriented with their content. That's because many long-tail keywords are centered around interrogative queries, like "what makes a good blog post," or "where should I host my blog," or "how to start a blog." Not only does centering content and SEO around long-tail keywords of this nature give you another avenue to assert yourself as a helpful marketer instead of a pushy salesperson, but it also helps you achieve higher search rankings quicker, and with a more niche market than short-tail and head terms allow. And if the keywords provide solutions to evergreen problems -- in other words, problems that your audience will always face -- your website will also enjoy ongoing organic traffic as a result of your high ranking for these long-tail queries!

7) Nurture leads with emails based on their problems. Now that you have all of this fantastic, solution-oriented content, you should use it to nurture your leads! After all, you can't have a successful lead nurturing program without a full arsenal of content. Consider segmenting your lists and creating lead nurturing tracks that address specific buyer problems. You can identify the problems right in your landing page forms. Take a look at the optional field we at HubSpot include on almost all of our landing pages to allow us to do this type of nurturing.

By asking leads to identify their biggest marketing challenge, we get a better idea of what problems our audience face so we can create content to address it, and simultaneously target prospects in our email sends according to the problems they need an answer to.

8) Create apps and tools that help solve a problem. Tools and apps -- especially free ones -- are mutually beneficial for businesses and their audience. Let's take one of HubSpot's free tools, Marketing Grader , as an example. Marketing Grader helps solve a problem many marketers face ... they don't know how good their marketing is. When you enter your website into the free tool, you get a comprehensive report that tells you not just an arbitrary grade, but also actionable advice on exactly what areas of your marketing need improvement, and how you can do it. It even provides links to content that helps solve your problems. So ask yourself: "Self, is there a tool or mobile app I could develop to help my leads and customers?" If there's a problem people in your industry face, make your business the one that solves it!

How do you inject problem solving into your marketing to gain the trust and loyalty of your prospects?

Image credit: Tomasz Stasiuk

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Problem Solving: 10 Common Digital Marketing Issues and Their Effective Solutions

In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital marketing, navigating the intricate process requires a strategic and comprehensive approach. This article serves as a guiding beacon, offering a step-by-step masterclass in the intricacies of the digital marketing process.

From conceptualization to implementation, each step is dissected to empower marketers with the knowledge and skills needed for excellence in the dynamic online realm. Explore the nuances of audience targeting, content creation, analytics interpretation, and the latest tools to master the digital marketing journey and achieve unparalleled success in the digital sphere.

Key takeaways:.

Holistic Understanding: Gain a comprehensive understanding of the digital marketing process, from initial ideation to execution, ensuring a well-rounded approach to online promotion.
Strategic Implementation: Learn to strategically implement digital marketing tactics, including audience targeting, content creation, and utilization of cutting-edge tools, for optimal results and campaign success.
Adaptable Mastery: Acquire adaptable skills to navigate the ever-changing digital landscape, staying ahead of trends and technologies, and ensuring sustained excellence in the dynamic world of online marketing.

The Challenges of Digital Marketing

Navigating the ever-evolving realm of digital marketing comes with its own set of challenges.

In this section, we’ll dive into the obstacles marketers face in a crowded online landscape, the pursuit of high-quality leads, establishing a strong online presence, making sense of and leveraging data effectively, keeping up with rapid technological changes, striking a balance between organic and paid marketing strategies, maneuvering through social media algorithms, and managing negative online feedback.

Stay tuned as we unravel the complexities of digital marketing and explore potential solutions to these hurdles.

Competing in a Crowded Digital Space

To successfully compete in a crowded digital space, businesses need to implement a series of strategic steps in order to stand out and capture the attention of their target audience. One of these steps is to identify a unique selling proposition (USP) that helps differentiate them from their competitors.

Additionally, businesses must create high-quality and engaging content that adds value to their target audience, as well as optimize their website and content for better visibility on search engines. Another effective strategy is to leverage various social media platforms to build a strong online presence and engage with the target audience.

Lastly, businesses should implement data-driven strategies to analyze and understand customer behavior and preferences. By incorporating these strategies into their digital marketing approach, businesses effectively compete in a crowded digital space and achieve their desired marketing goals.

Generating Quality Leads

Generating quality leads is definite for the success of any digital marketing strategy . To effectively generate high-quality leads, consider the following steps:

Identify your target audience: Understand who your ideal customers are and create buyer personas to tailor your marketing efforts.
Create valuable content: Develop content that provides value to your target audience and addresses their pain points .
Optimize your website: Improve your website’s user experience and optimize it for search engines to increase organic traffic and attract qualified leads.
Use lead magnets : Offer valuable incentives, such as ebooks , webinars , or free trials , to encourage visitors to provide their contact information .
Utilize social media: Leverage social media platforms to engage with your audience, share valuable content, and drive traffic to your website.
Implement email marketing : Build a strong email list and send personalized, targeted emails to nurture leads and guide them through the sales funnel.
Track and analyze your results: Use analytics tools to monitor your lead generation efforts, identify what’s working, and make data-driven optimizations.
Provide excellent customer service : Deliver exceptional customer service to build trust with your leads and turn them into loyal customers.

Fact: According to recent statistics, companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost.

Building a Strong Online Presence

Developing a robust online presence is essential for businesses in the digital era. In order to establish an impactful online presence , companies should prioritize the following strategies:

1. Formulate a comprehensive marketing plan that encompasses techniques for optimizing your website, improving search engine rankings , and fostering a strong social media presence .

2. Craft compelling, high-quality content that resonates with your target audience , encouraging them to engage with your brand .

3. Employ digital marketing tactics like search engine optimization (SEO) , social media marketing , and influencer collaborations to expand your online reach.

4. Regularly analyze and evaluate your online performance using data analytics and reporting tools to identify areas that are improved.

5. Provide exceptional customer service and support across various online channels, cultivating trust and loyalty with your audience .

By implementing these strategies, businesses establish a solid online presence and effectively connect with their target audience .

Understanding and Utilizing Data Effectively

Understanding and utilizing data effectively is driven for digital marketers to optimize their strategies and achieve maximum marketing ROI. Here are some tips:

Collect and analyze relevant data to gain insights into your target audience , their online behavior , and preferences .
Use data visualization tools to present complex information clearly and understandably.
Segment your audience based on their characteristics and behaviors to personalize your marketing messages.
Track key metrics such as website traffic , conversion rates , and customer engagement to measure the success of your data-driven campaigns.
Stay informed about industry trends and changes in search engine algorithms to adjust your digital marketing tactics accordingly.

Adapting to Continuous Technological Changes

Adapting to continuous technological changes is vital for achieving success in digital marketing. Marketers must stay informed about the latest advancements in digital platforms and trends in order to navigate this challenge.

They should be proactive in implementing new strategies and optimizing existing ones to keep up with changing consumer behaviors and preferences. This includes utilizing cutting-edge technologies and tools, such as marketing automation, data analytics, and search engine optimization techniques, to effectively reach a broader audience and maximize marketing return on investment (ROI).

By embracing change and continuously updating their digital marketing strategies, businesses position themselves ahead of the competition and effectively engage potential customers in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Balancing Organic and Paid Marketing Strategies

When it comes to digital marketing, achieving a harmonious balance between organic and paid strategies is vital for achieving success. Here are some key considerations to bear in mind:

Organic strategies: These encompass techniques like search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing . Their focus lies in creating valuable, relevant content that captivates and engages your desired audience.
Paid strategies: This entails investing in advertising to boost visibility and broaden your reach. Paid strategies, such as pay-per-click (PPC) ads , enable you to directly target and connect with specific demographics.
Benefits of organic strategies: These approaches yield long-term results, enhance brand credibility, and provide cost-effective means of attracting organic traffic.
Benefits of paid strategies: These tactics offer immediate visibility, allow you to target specific demographics, and provide measurable outcomes.
Challenges of balancing: Striking the right balance between organic and paid strategies are challenging due to limited resources and budgetary constraints. It requires identifying your goals, target audience, and the resources available.
Integration: The optimal approach is to integrate both organic and paid strategies. Leverage organic methods to establish a robust foundation and enhance credibility, while employing paid strategies to amplify your reach and specifically target desired audiences.

Navigating Social Media Algorithms

Navigating Social Media Algorithms is a daunting task for digital marketers. However, with these strategies, you can overcome any challenges:

Create compelling and relevant content that truly resonates with your target audience. By doing so, you can significantly increase visibility and expand your reach on various social media platforms.
Strategically incorporate relevant hashtags to optimize your content’s discoverability and boost its reach.
Drive audience engagement by encouraging them to participate through thought-provoking questions , exciting contests, or even showcasing user-generated content .
Consistency is key! Make sure to post consistently and at optimal times when your target audience is most active on social media.
Leverage analytics tools to track engagement and make necessary adjustments to your content strategy based on the data.
Expand your reach by collaborating with influencers or micro-influencers who have an engaged audience that aligns with your target market.
Investing in paid advertising is worth considering as it greatly enhances your visibility and helps you overcome any limitations imposed by the algorithm.
Stay informed about platform algorithm changes and adapt your strategy accordingly to stay ahead in the game.

By implementing these effective strategies, you will navigate Social Media Algorithms with ease and ensure that your content reaches a wider audience, ultimately generating meaningful engagement.

Dealing with Negative Online Feedback

When dealing with negative online feedback, it is important to respond promptly. Address the feedback as soon as possible to show that you care about addressing concerns.

Stay professional when dealing with negative online feedback. Maintain a calm and professional tone in your response, even if the feedback is unfair or unjust.
Take responsibility for any mistakes or shortcomings when dealing with negative online feedback. Acknowledge them and offer a sincere apology if necessary.
Offer solutions when dealing with negative online feedback. Provide a resolution or offer to rectify the situation to show that you are committed to customer satisfaction.
Encourage dialogue when dealing with negative online feedback. Invite the customer to continue the conversation privately or offline to further resolve the issue.

Fact: According to a study, 78% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Possible Solutions for Digital Marketing Challenges

Looking to overcome the challenges in digital marketing? This section dives into actionable solutions that help you navigate the digital landscape with confidence.

From conducting thorough market research to leveraging influencer marketing, implementing SEO techniques, and embracing data analytics, we’ll explore various approaches to tackle these obstacles head-on.

Crafting a targeted content strategy, utilizing marketing automation tools, engaging with customers on social media, and providing excellent customer service is also part of the arsenal of solutions we’ll be discussing. Let’s dive in and discover effective ways to tackle the digital marketing world!

Conducting Comprehensive Market Research

Conducting comprehensive market research is critical for successful digital marketing campaigns. It is important to identify your target audience and understand who your customers are, their demographics, interests, and online behaviors. In addition, analyzing competitors’ digital marketing strategies and identifying gaps in the market is essential.

Defining clear objectives for your digital marketing campaign, such as increasing website traffic, boosting conversions, or enhancing brand awareness , is also important. Collecting relevant data from various sources, including website analytics, customer surveys, social media insights, and industry reports , is a necessary step.

It is also vital to analyze market trends and stay updated with the latest industry trends and consumer preferences to align your marketing efforts accordingly. Segmenting your audience based on their demographics, behaviors, and preferences to create personalized marketing messages is another key aspect.

Testing different marketing strategies and measuring their effectiveness through A/B testing, tracking metrics, and making data-driven optimizations is important as well.

By conducting comprehensive market research, you gain valuable insights into your target audience, competitors, and industry trends. This knowledge will empower you to tailor your digital marketing strategies for maximum impact and success.

Crafting a Targeted Content Strategy

When it comes to crafting a targeted content strategy for digital marketing, there are several essential steps to follow:

Identify your target audience: Understand who your ideal customers are and what kind of content they are looking for.
Conduct market research: Gather insights on your target audience’s preferences, interests, and pain points to inform your content strategy .
Set clear goals and objectives: Determine what you want to achieve with your content , whether it’s increasing brand awareness , driving traffic , or generating leads .
Create high-quality and relevant content: Develop valuable content that resonates with your target audience and addresses their needs , using a mix of formats like blog posts, videos, infographics, and more.
Optimize for search engines: Incorporate relevant keywords and optimize your content to improve search engine rankings and increase visibility .
Establish a content calendar: Plan and organize your content creation and distribution schedule to ensure consistency and maximize engagement .
Promote your content: Share your content on relevant social media channels, email newsletters, and other platforms to reach a wider audience and drive traffic .
Measure and analyze: Monitor the performance of your content using analytics tools, track key metrics like engagement, conversions, and return on investment, and use the insights to refine and improve your strategy .

Implementing Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Implementing search engine optimization techniques greatly improves the visibility and ranking of your website in search engine results. Here are some steps to effectively implement SEO:

1. Keyword research: Identify relevant keywords that your target audience uses when searching for products or services.

2. On-page optimization: Optimize your website’s meta tags, headings, and content to include your target keywords.

3. Quality content creation: Produce high-quality and engaging content that incorporates your target keywords naturally.

4. Link building: Generate backlinks from reputable websites to increase your website’s authority and credibility.

5. Mobile optimization: Ensure that your website is optimized for mobile devices, as mobile-friendly websites rank higher in search results.

6. Website speed optimization: Improve your website’s loading speed, as faster websites are favored by search engines.

7. User experience optimization: Enhance your website’s usability and navigation to provide a positive user experience.

8. Regular monitoring and analysis: Continuously monitor your website’s performance using analytics tools and make necessary adjustments.

By implementing these SEO techniques, you can increase your website’s visibility, drive organic traffic, and improve your search engine rankings.

Leveraging Influencer Marketing

Leveraging influencer marketing is an effective and powerful strategy for overcoming digital marketing challenges and expanding your reach to a wider audience.

Building brand credibility: By partnering with influencers who align with your brand values and possess a strong following, you enhance your brand credibility and foster trust among potential customers.
Reaching target audience: Influencers have already cultivated a loyal audience that matches your target demographic , providing you with the opportunity to connect with potential customers who may not yet be familiar with your brand.
Increasing engagement: Influencers produce captivating content centered around your brand, encouraging their followers to actively engage with your brand and resulting in higher engagement rates.
Improving search engine ranking: Collaborating with influencers often leads to valuable backlinks and social media mentions, which positively impact your search engine ranking and enhance your online visibility.
Driving conversions: Through the utilization of influencer marketing, you boost sales and conversions as their followers are more inclined to trust their recommendations and make informed purchasing decisions.

Fact: A survey reveals that 40% of individuals have reported purchasing after witnessing an influencer’s recommendation on social media.

Utilizing Marketing Automation Tools

Utilizing marketing automation tools greatly streamline and enhance digital marketing efforts. These tools offer numerous benefits, including:

Efficiency: Marketing automation tools can efficiently automate repetitive tasks, saving time and increasing productivity.
Personalization: By utilizing automation, marketers segment their audience and deliver personalized content and messages based on individual preferences and behaviors.
Lead nurturing: Through automation tools, businesses implement automated email campaigns and lead scoring, nurturing leads through the buyer’s journey until they are ready to make a purchase.
Improved targeting: Utilizing marketing automation tools enables marketers to track and analyze data, helping them identify and target the right audience with relevant campaigns.
Analytics and reporting: These tools provide valuable insights into campaign performance, assisting in measuring the success of marketing efforts.

By effectively utilizing marketing automation tools, businesses optimize their digital marketing strategies, save time and resources, and ultimately achieve better results.

Embracing Data Analytics and Measurement

Embracing data analytics and measurement is essential in overcoming digital marketing challenges. By incorporating tools and techniques to collect and analyze data, marketers gain valuable insights into consumer behavior, refine their strategies, and measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.

The use of data analytics enables the identification of trends, preferences, and key metrics that drive success. It also aids in comprehending the customer journey and creating personalized experiences. By embracing data analytics and measurement, marketers make well-informed decisions, optimize their marketing efforts, and achieve the maximum return on investment.

Engaging with Customers on Social Media Platforms

Engaging with customers on social media platforms is vital for achieving success in digital marketing. Implementing effective strategies to connect with your audience is fundamental.

Here are some tips to help you achieve this:

Create valuable and relevant content that truly engages your target audience on social media platforms.

Regularly engage with your followers by promptly responding to their comments, messages, and mentions.

Utilize contests, polls, and giveaways to incentivize user participation and enhance their engagement.

Showcasing user-generated content is a great way to demonstrate appreciation and involve your customers in your brand.

Consider collaborating with influencers and brand advocates to broaden your reach and enhance your credibility.

Pro-tip: Building strong relationships with your social media audience requires authenticity and genuine two-way communication.

Providing Excellent Customer Service and Support

To provide exceptional customer service and support in digital marketing , it is crucial to prioritize providing excellent customer service and support. This is achieved by being responsive , practicing personalized communication , and actively solving problems . By efficiently addressing customer inquiries and concerns in a timely manner, trust and loyalty are built.

Moreover, personalizing the communication by using their names and making reference to previous interactions significantly enhances the customer experience. It is also important to have a strong problem-solving approach, involving active listening to customer feedback, showing empathy toward their concerns, and taking proactive measures to resolve issues.

By consistently delivering outstanding customer service and support, digital marketers greatly improve customer satisfaction and foster positive brand interactions.

Some Facts About Digital Marketing Problems and Solutions:

✅ Small budgets and competition from bigger competitors are common digital marketing problems.
✅ Segmenting the audience can help maximize marketing ROI.
✅ Enhancing Google My Business page and listing on other directories improve local marketing strategy.
✅ Focusing on dominating the best-performing social media channels is better than managing multiple profiles.
✅ Constant adaptation to evolving technology is necessary to stay ahead in digital marketing.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. what are some common digital marketing problems and their solutions.

Some common digital marketing problems include struggling with a small budget and standing out against bigger competitors. However, solutions to these problems include segmenting the audience to maximize marketing ROI, enhancing Google My Business page and listing on other directories for local marketing, and focusing on dominating the best-performing social media channels instead of managing multiple profiles.

2. How can businesses overcome the challenge of poor conversion rates?

Poor conversion rates may be caused by targeting the wrong audience or having a website design and copy that doesn’t resonate with visitors. To overcome this challenge, businesses should reassess their target audience and ensure their website is optimized to provide a seamless user experience that resonates with visitors.

3. What are some challenges in digital marketing related to technology?

Constant changes in technology pose a challenge in digital marketing, as businesses must constantly adapt their strategies to stay ahead of the competition. Staying informed about new developments and trends is a solution to this problem, ensuring businesses adjust their strategies accordingly.

4. How can businesses handle the overwhelming amount of available data in digital marketing?

The overwhelming amount of data available in digital marketing can make it difficult for businesses to identify relevant and useful data. Solutions to data overload include using analytics and reporting tools to track key metrics and using data visualization tools to make sense of large amounts of data.

5. How can businesses overcome the lack of personalization in digital marketing?

Lack of personalization is another problem in digital marketing, as businesses struggle to tailor marketing messages to specific segments of their audience. Using customer relationship management (CRM) software and marketing automation software helps businesses overcome this challenge by enabling personalized communication and targeting.

6. How can businesses choose the right agency to work with in digital marketing?

To avoid common errors in digital marketing, businesses need to choose the right agency to work with. Screening their experience and track records, ensuring they are familiar with different digital marketing channels, and having a detailed digital marketing brief help align expectations and establish a fruitful partnership.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

6.3 Types of Consumer Decisions

As you read through the stages of the decision making process, did you think “Wait a minute. I do this sometimes but not all the time”? That is indicative of the different levels of involvement within the decision making process. In this section, we will examine this difference in more detail and how it may impact the marketing strategy.

Levels of Involvement in Decision Making

As you have seen, many factors influence a consumer’s behavior. Depending on a consumer’s experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purchase decisions and other consumers may need to get information and be more involved in the decision process before making a purchase. The level of involvement reflects how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product and how much information you need to make a decision. The level of involvement in buying decisions may be considered a continuum from decisions that are fairly routine (consumers are not very involved) to decisions that require extensive thought and a high level of involvement. Whether a decision is low, high, or limited, involvement varies by consumer, not by product, although some products such as purchasing a house typically require a high-involvement for all consumers. Consumers with no experience purchasing a product may have more involvement than someone who is replacing a product.

You have probably thought about many products you want or need but never did much more than that. At other times, you’ve probably looked at dozens of products, compared them, and then decided not to purchase any one of them. When you run out of products such as milk or bread that you buy on a regular basis, you may buy the product as soon as you recognize the need because you do not need to search for information or evaluate alternatives. As Nike would put it, you “just do it.” Low-involvement decisions are, however, typically products that are relatively inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if they makes a mistake by purchasing them.

Consumers often engage in routine, or habitual, behavior when they make low-involvement decisions—that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you’re engaging in routine response behavior. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. Similarly, if you run out of Diet Coke at home, you may buy more without any information search.

Some low-involvement purchases are made with no planning or previous thought. These buying decisions are called impulse buying. While you’re waiting to check out at the grocery store, perhaps you see a magazine with the latest celebrity or influencer on the cover and buy it on the spot simply because you want it. You might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one or you might see a bag of chips and realize you’re hungry or just want them.

By contrast, high-involvement decisions carry a higher risk to buyers if they fail, are complex, and/or have high price tags. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often but are relevant and important to the buyer. Buyers don’t engage in routine response behavior when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what’s called extended problem solving where they spend a lot of time comparing different aspects such as the features of the products, prices, and warranties.

High-involvement decisions can cause buyers a great deal of cognitive (postpurchase) dissonance (anxiety) if they are unsure about their purchases or if they had a difficult time deciding between two alternatives. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware that dissonance can be a problem. Frequently, they try to offer consumers a lot of information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and how they won’t let the consumer down. Salespeople may be utilized to answer questions and do a lot of customer “hand-holding.”

Allstate’s “You’re in Good Hands” advertisements are designed to convince consumers that the insurance company won’t let them down.

Mike Mozart – Allstate, – CC BY 2.0.

Limited problem solving falls somewhere between low-involvement (routine) and high-involvement (extended problem solving) decisions. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a little more information. Assume you need a new backpack for a hiking trip. While you are familiar with backpacks, you know that new features and materials are available since you purchased your last backpack. You’re going to spend some time looking for one that’s decent because you don’t want it to fall apart while you’re traveling and dump everything you’ve packed on a hiking trail. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favorite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. Or you might rely on the advice of a person you know who’s knowledgeable about backpacks. In some way you shorten or limit your involvement and the decision-making process.

Products, such as chewing gum, which may be low-involvement for many consumers, often use advertising such as commercials and sales promotions such as coupons to reach many consumers at once. Companies also try to sell products such as gum in as many locations as possible. Many products that are typically high-involvement such as automobiles may use more personal selling to answer consumers’ questions. Brand names can also be very important regardless of the consumer’s level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low- versus high-involvement decision—say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behavior), but not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you “search time” and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you’re getting.

When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brand or brands. For example, in the 1970s, American-made cars had such a poor reputation for quality that buyers joked that a car that’s “not Jap [Japanese made] is crap.” The quality of American cars is very good today, but you get the picture. If it’s a high-involvement product you’re purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That’s why the manufacturers of products that are typically high-involvement decisions can’t become complacent about the value of their brands.

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COMMENTS

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