VistaPrint’s 2024 Hobby to Hustle Report reveals a significant skills gap that currently exists in small business owners, with over half (55%) describing themselves as “not skilled at all” or only “slightly skilled” in branding, marketing, and design. To compound the issue, over a fifth (22%) of business owners and side hustlers don’t know where to look if they need design and marketing support. This is creating a significant barrier to starting and growing a business.
Technologies and tools which democratise key marketing skills like design, creativity and critical thinking can help close that gap, as can learning and development programs. Vital to that is opening those tools and techniques to SMBs which make up 98% of businesses in Australia. By doing so, they can tap into the skills and tools and generate growth for their business and reach more customers in an impactful way.
Here are four ways we can address the SMB marketing skills gap in 2025:
Invest in upskilling
According to Deloitte Access Economics’ latest Ready, Set, Upskill report for RMIT Online, Australian businesses were expected to spend approximately $8 billion on learning and development in 2024. Four of the top five skills surveyed employers said they lacked were digital, with one-in-eight Aussie businesses planning on spending less on learning and development. This would mean missing out on skills valued at approximately $2 billion over the course of a year or $5.6 million per day. Furthermore, think tank CEDA has revealed Australia’s falling ranking in its digital competitiveness, ranking a lowly 40th out of 63 nations in digital and technological skills.
Marketing, like most sectors, is becoming increasingly digitised, which will only accentuate as generative AI proliferates. As such, investing in upskilling and ensuring that your skillset is on the pulse of emerging technologies, particularly for SMBs where this can be a battleground for winning and losing, will be critical. This could be via short courses, certificates, and micro-credentials that leading universities and organisations now offer online; personal development through reading books and materials, or networking and collaborating with other small businesses owners or peers who are adept in the area and seek their advice.
Utilise democratisation tools
According to Gartner, Australian businesses are set to increase their IT expenditure to A$146.85 billion in 2025, marking an 8.7 per cent increase from 2024. For small businesses, immediate value is key, with a recent Tech Research Asia report showing they favour quick time-to-value from IT more than traditional ROI.
Small business owners wear enough hats without needing to get their head around complex, expensive technology, and do not have the resources to wait for it to impact their bottom line. This is where platforms that democratise key areas of your business such as marketing and branding come into play. Now, small businesses can get true value from tools that do everything from create logos, provide expert design advice, craft leading edge packaging, and create websites and domain hosting with inbuilt ecommerce capability.
Democratisation, both with regards to cost and usability, help bridge the skills gap – ensuring SMBs don’t need complex coding skills or knowhow, or particularly deep pockets, to access tools that can help their business grow.
Don’t forget the power of traditional formats
While the digital world provides immense opportunity to small businesses, there’s beauty in the simplicity of stripping things back to more familiar physical, material forms which still pack a punch when building a brand and influencing consumers.
So, while upskilling your digital skills and adopting IT are important, businesses must not lose the essence of branding and marketing in its physical form, whether that’s via creative and dynamic business cards that bring you and your business’s personality to life; ensuring your packaging is branded, sustainable and practical; utilising signage to proper effect; or focusing on providing quality merchandise.
For some businesses, this is front and centre. Take Aussie hair scrunchy brand, Made by Taylah Rose. From her business’s inception in 2014, Taylah used design and marketing partner Vista to build a brand through physical market stalls, which complimented her social media and website efforts. Taylah created a full suite of branded materials including bow cards, business cards and banners. She still regularly participates in markets and says her branded materials are key to increasing her visibility and showcasing her products.
Making it stick in 2025
SMBs live in a world of more opportunity than ever.
There are more ways to reach customers than ever before, more ways to reach mass audiences, and more tools at our disposal than we could possibly wish for.
A skills gap does, however, exist, and SMBs must be creative to ensure that gap can be closed. This can be through learning and development initiatives; utilising tools and technologies which democratise marketing skills like design, creativity, and critical thinking; and staying true to traditional forms of marketing that we and our customers are accustomed to and thrive off.
I am confident 2025 will be the year this happens.
Contributed by Linda McDonald, Senior Director of Marketing, Sales and CX at Vista Australia: