Whoever said digital marketing was an easy job hasn’t been acquainted with the challenges digital marketers will face in 2024.
As a company that interacts with multiple digital marketers (as well as solo entrepreneurs who act as hands-on digital marketers) daily, we know a thing or two based on our interactions.
Based on those, here are the top five challenges we’ve singled out (as well as how to overcome them)!
Challenge #1: Creating Interesting Content in the Age of AI
A recent study by Semrush revealed that more than 50% of companies don’t allocate even a penny to generating long-form content in the age of AI.
Source: Semrush
Unsurprisingly, the rise of AI has brought two major challenges for marketers:
- The challenge of convincing company heads to allocate marketing budgets to create content that stands out from the crowd.
- The challenge of creating interesting content in the age of AI that makes people stop and read.
How to overcome it?
Many experts suggest adopting AI in your content creation method (to improve the result) but not completely relying on it. For example, here, Godrej Properties uses AI to show its amenities:
Source: Instagram
Also, try experimenting with content formats in your marketing efforts that AI can’t replicate (e.g., thought-leadership content or content with subject-matter expert input).
As far as convincing company heads is concerned, a quick side-by-side comparison of the results achieved by the posts created by AI vs. the ones created by humans ought to do the trick. (Or you can even use the experiment Hotjar did 🙂)
Source: Hotjar
Challenge #2: Keeping Up with the Changing Algorithms
Almost every software is changing its algorithm weekly.
However, what’s difficult isn’t only keeping up with these changing algorithms but also figuring out which of these changes will actually end up getting you the results you need.
For example, Google SearchLiasion posts a lot of information about what Google wants to see, but oftentimes, the algorithm actually doesn’t support the changes they suggest implementing.
How to overcome it?
Keep up with the experts — and that’s about it. Pick an expert for every platform whose opinion you trust and who’ll keep you updated about the changes.
For example, Annie Mai is one such expert who posts a lot of information about social media updates and algorithms.
Source: Twitter
Jeremy Moser is another expert. In his newspaper, SEO Power Plays, he shares Google algorithm updates (as well as his thoughts on these updates and how they can impact search engines and rankings).
Source: SEO Power Plays
Challenge #3: Market Saturation
One of the modern-day challenges digital marketing virtual assistants face is the promotion of niche products like Delta 10 Gummies in a market saturated with various wellness and recreational alternatives.
Source: FasterCapital
How to overcome it?
To stand out, marketers must leverage data-driven insights to tailor their campaigns, ensuring they resonate with the target audience’s preferences and behaviors. Additionally, staying abreast of the ever-evolving legal landscape surrounding such products is crucial to avoid regulatory pitfalls.
By adopting an agile marketing strategy that emphasizes education and transparency, marketers can build trust and authority in the niche, turning challenges into opportunities for growth.
Challenge #4: Engaging with a Fragmented Audience
Another issue for many marketers is dealing with target audience fragments and dozens of buyer personas, especially if they work for ecommerce companies or larger brands that see varied audiences.
The fragments usually result in further challenges, like not being able to:
- Get a pulse on audience sentiments or demographics
- Allocate resources effectively
- Make data-driven decisions
- Personalize content
How to overcome it?
Rather than investing your time and energy in being on almost every platform, our main advice would be to decide on a few marketing channels that work best for you and stick to those.
Source: X
Alternatively, if you wish to be on multiple social media channels, consider distributing and repurposing content. For example, a podcast can become a blog post or a social media post — and all you’ll have to do is edit the transcript for both formats to ensure platform nativity.
For resources, you can check out Ross Simmonds’s Create Once, Distribute Forever book, in which he shares his insights on how to use the same content on different social media platforms to get the audience’s attention.
Challenge #5: Dealing with Information Overload
Last but not least, one of the bigger challenges for digital marketers is dealing with an audience that has a terrible case of information overload (primarily due to them being online and hence subjugated to many marketing messages and ads in a limited span of time).
How to overcome it?
Here are a few practices that’ll help you beat this challenge:
- Focus more on providing value to your audience and less on selling to them (i.e., if you promote your product/service once after giving them genuine advice ten times, they’d be more likely to buy it).
- Reduce the cadence of your communication — you don’t need to schedule three posts a day when your audience can be just as happy with three posts a week. Tap into Google Analytics to find your sweet spot.
- Provide additional clarity by showcasing visuals and graphics. For example, when Codeless (a content marketing agency) tries to educate its audience about new marketing concepts, it always pairs it with a few diagrams and images.
- Send a direct mail piece so that recipients engage with marketing messages when they feel ready to rather than instantly, which leads to information overload.
Source: Codeless
Engage with Your Audiences Through POWR
The primary thing all marketing strategy challenges boil down to is getting your audiences to engage with you and eventually buy from you.
And getting your audiences to engage with you is one thing we specialize in. We do this by helping your marketing team create website apps (e.g., forms, social feeds, popups, countdown timers, etc.) for different needs.
To get started, sign up for free and leverage our services to help streamline all your marketing activities and improve customer relationships.
The only constant in modern marketing is change. You must adapt to keep up!
Author Bio
Mike Bandar is an award-winning UK-based entrepreneur. A Founding Partner of Turn Partners, the startup studio focused on the acquisition, turnaround or creation of digital businesses. Through Turn Partners, Mike co-founded Hopper HQ the Instagram planning and scheduling tool, working with thousands of influencers, brands, and agencies around the world.
