How Lack of Visibility Affects Your Business Results

In marketing, there are, generally, two types of visibility: external and internal. The former is the one that most business owners usually focus on, while the latter tends to be put on the back burner. However, both are equally important, as lack of visibility can result in the loss of revenue and a high employee turnover.

So, what exactly does low visibility mean to businesses and how does it impact organizations? To find out more, read on.

What Is Visibility in Marketing?

First of all, marketing visibility shouldn’t be mistaken for business visibility. Business visibility focuses on how management understands internal processes and the economic climate, to plan future sales, profits, and growth.

However, in marketing, visibility has a different scope.

External marketing visibility refers to how your target market sees you – how aware the audience is of your brand. You can work on that through online and offline advertising – social media posts, PPC ads, billboards, TV and radio placements, and more.

Internal marketing visibility, on the other hand, touches on operations and internal communication – meaning how well management and employees understand the company’s business goals and marketing strategy, and how transparent and productive is the workflow as a result. In other words, it’s about how well you sell your branding and company culture to your workforce, in order to build a strong and efficient team.

In this article, we will discuss how a lack of visibility in both internal and external marketing can derail business results.

Lack of Visibility in Internal Marketing

Since clarity in operations and communication are often overlooked in organizations, let’s take a look at how a lack of internal marketing visibility can affect the company.

A Lack in Efficiency

Proper communication is the backbone of internal marketing. Teammates should be relaying their tasks and progress to each other consistently, so no one is kept in the dark. Otherwise, there is a high possibility of creating silos, misunderstandings, and duplication.

As a result, assignments may constantly need to be reworked, or may even remain unattended. These things can hinder the workforce and create inefficiency within the team.

Here are a couple of ways to avoid inefficiency within the organization:

1. Provide feedback to your staff. If you feel like your teammates are a bit lost as to which direction they should be heading at work, then go ahead and guide them. Set one-on-one meetings where you can give assessments as to how your employees are doing.
2. Use a BPM tool. This way, staff members can easily update their tasks for better visibility, and everyone can keep track of their colleagues’ progress.
3. Learn to prioritize and manage your time. Put the most important tasks at the top of your priority list and work your way through to avoid cramming.
4. Set clear expectations and KPIs. Measure the output so you can get the right data.

A Decrease in the Business Value

A boost in sales and in the overall value of a business starts with internal marketing. If the marketing and sales teams are not in sync, then they wouldn’t be able to target the right customers and close deals.

If they are unable to reach the correct audience, there will be no way to convey the company’s marketing message or convince leads to convert. To do this, the team must be equipped with the appropriate tools and strategies.

A CRM tool enables the two departments to both have full access to the customer’s profile and details, as well as their history and interactions records. This way, they can work in sync, and provide top-notch customer service and boost sales.

Combining this with a BPM tool, the two departments can collaborate better and make sure that they are on the same page, and don’t interfere with each other’s agenda.

Confusion Within the Organization

To follow the company’s business goal and achieve results, team members need to be aware of what these goals are and what immediate objectives to prioritize. However, if people are confused about the bigger picture and their part in it, this can lead to confusion. This, in turn, can cause inefficiency, demotivation, and even employee turnovers.

Setting regular meetings and internal informational bulletins can solve this problem, but also, overdoing it can cause unwanted delays. You don’t need people spending more time in meetings talking about what needs to be done, instead of doing it.

Having better internal business visibility and internal marketing processes in place can reduce the need for endless meetings. When people keep each other in the loop and are aware of their colleagues’ progress through communication tools they will have better visibility of the overall processes around them. This can be done through proper information organization, data filing, and project management, which can all be processed through a CRM system.

Lack of Visibility in External Marketing

Now that you are aware of the pitfalls of having a lack of visibility in your internal marketing, it’s time to delve into how the absence of online visibility marketing can affect the external branding operations.

Low Rankings on SERPs

Regularly check on your brand’s search rankings to see if you are on the first few pages. If your brand name is nowhere to be found, then chances are your SEO strategy needs adjustments.

A lot of things can affect your SERP rankings: the keywords that you are using, the title, the images in your article, meta description, and more.

To improve your results, consider working on the following:

1. Research and use the right keywords. Using tools such as the Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest can help with this.
2. Avoid writing for the bots. Google can determine whether an article was written to bring value to actual human beings, or it was created only for the sake of ranking. If your content is low quality, chances are Google’s crawlers will recognize it as spam.
3. Optimize for mobile. Most people go online on their handheld devices, and it is a must to optimize your website to provide a smooth and easier experience.
4. Focus on the user experience. If your webpage is difficult to navigate, then chances are your visitors will exit the site and look for a better one. Make sure to implement a “Search” button so your audience can easily find what they need on the website.

A Lack of Engagement

If you are noticing a drop in your audience engagement, then you might not be working hard enough on your SEO, or may need to get to know your audience better.

Sure, it is crucial to provide high-quality content so your readers will be compelled to click on it, but if it is not what they care about, then your efforts will be put to waste.

Make sure to spend enough time and resources learning about your audience’s interests, needs, demographics, and profiles, so that you can create content that can be of value to them and engage them.

Next, promote your content by using the right SEO tactics, advertising on social media, and working on your PPC advertisements. This will increase your online visibility marketing success and boost brand awareness.

Reaching Out to the Wrong Audience

It might be tempting to try and target as many people as possible, but this strategy is not as effective as it might seem. To reach the right audience, you must first understand your customers better and create different buyer personas. This means grouping them according to their demographics, which includes their age, status, location, interests, intent, buying behavior, and more.

Working Towards Better Visibility

Lack of visibility can undoubtedly affect the company in a negative manner, as your business management and clients are what keep your endeavor afloat. However, visibility can be achieved and improved by bringing awareness to the forefront of your organization, both when it comes to internal and external matters. The sooner you pinpoint the problems that you are dealing with, the sooner you can come up with strategies to combat them.

Mapping out your tactics and bringing your team on board with your plans will contribute to an improvement in communications, which will, in turn, bring success to the brand.

When planning how to battle a lack of visibility, make sure to do your research beforehand and find the tools that best fit your business needs.