Marketing shouldn’t feel this hard. But sometimes, it does. Ask Cameo is our no-nonsense agony aunt column, offering practical advice for digital marketers and business owners trying to do good work in difficult environments.
Dear Cameo,
I’m the sole marketer at a small B2B company and our website is… embarrassing. Outdated branding, clunky user journey, zero SEO optimisation.
I know it’s hurting our performance, but every time I mention it I’m told “there’s no budget.”
How am I supposed to generate leads or get found in search when our most important digital asset is working against us?
Stuck with a Site from 2009
Hey Stuck,
We’ve all been there. Websites are expensive, and the process of building and launching them is a nightmare, so it’s unsurprising that lots of smaller companies take the “not broke, don’t fix it” approach.
The trouble is, as the sole marketer in an organisation, you can often see the cost of standing still where others can’t. When there’s “no budget”, the missed opportunities keep piling up, and it’s easy to feel like you’re being left behind.
The good news? You’re not as powerless as you think. Here’s how I’ve approached similar situations in the past:
Short-term fix: DIY like a rebel
It’s time to embrace a little marketing rebellion. You don’t need to wait for a big rebrand to start making an impact. Instead, get scrappy and learn to DIY.
Your first mission: install Google Tag Manager, by any means necessary. Use the GDPR compliance angle to get dev sign-off, or promise better marketing reports through upgraded analytics tracking. If you don’t have a dev, hire someone on Fiverr. Just get it on there.
Once you’ve got GTM in place, it’s your secret weapon. You can patch up metadata, inject new CTAs, hotfix dodgy layouts, and even test content variations, all without touching your CMS.
Check out Simo Ahava to see what’s possible. And remember to track every change in GA4 so you’ve got data to back you up.
Long-term fix: Build the business case
While you’re DIY-ing in the short term, start laying the groundwork for a proper rebuild. Here’s how:
- Use sales as your ally: B2B companies often downplay marketing’s role when direct sales are strong. Get your sales team on side. Help them understand that every lead is checking out your website between calls. A poor first impression can kill deals before they start.
- Collect client feedback: Ask recent clients to compare your website to competitors. Frame it as a quick gut-check – what does the site make them feel? What’s missing? Make sure to stress that you don’t want them to be polite. You need honesty.
- Build ‘what if’ scenarios: If a quick meta data update increased SEO traffic and a few on-page tweaks increased engagement time, imagine what a full revamp could do. Use every little win as a building block in your case.
Next up: become the squeaky wheel
With your business case in hand, it’s time to perfect the art of being a right pain in the backside – in the nicest possible way, of course. Set out your stall at every opportunity, and don’t let the conversation drop.
Every one-to-one, every post-campaign review, every performance report, be sure to remind stakeholders what’s possible with a better website, and what you’re losing without it.
And if they still say no?
Sometimes the problem isn’t you. Some companies just don’t get it, or can’t act yet. If that’s the case, know that you’ve done your job well, and picked up skills that will make a huge difference elsewhere when the time is right.
You’ve got this.
