As any industry insider would know, marketing always depends on who the end customer is. For marketers whose product or service is meant for businesses rather than direct consumers, sleek and agile B2B marketing approaches prevail.
However, in most instances, B2C marketing – that is, marketing that is geared towards everyday individuals like you and me – is what dominates the industry. In this regard, what does B2C marketing entail and which approaches are preferred at a time where millennials and Gen Zs are challenging the very foundation of media and consumerism?
My blog this week takes a quick stab at answering this question. Keep reading to find out.
What does B2C marketing entail?
When it comes to B2C marketing, anything goes. This means Snapchat, Vine, Instagram stories, and just about any other trending media platform that helps get your message across, is fair game. Unlike B2B marketing, marketers are only constrained by the confines of their imagination. According to Pew, 33% of adults aged 18-39 turn to the internet when looking for information relating to local businesses, while 26% rely primarily on the web to research companies in their area.
In this regard, content is easily the most important aspect you need to get right. Many marketers these days lack a coherent strategy that leads to direct sales. Your approach needs to always address the various preferences, attitudes, interests, and unconscious motivators consumers come programmed with. Under this category, social media marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) are critical components. These will be discussed in the subsections below.
Apart from these, it’s also important to come up with ingenious engagement campaigns, that will have customers eating out of your hands. In this regard, influencer campaigns, giveaways, demos, and creating social media communities such as Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins campaign, are some great ways to keep your customers coming back for more.
Content marketing strategies
As I mentioned earlier, content marketing is one of the most important aspects of B2C marketing. Here, having a strategy is key. Without a strategy on which platform you wish to remain active, what kind of content you’d like to share, when you’d like to post your content, and whether you wish to host a blog on your website, among others, you will find that success is hard to come by.
Content marketing is so effective, that MarketingSherpa used it to increase their blog traffic by a whopping 232%. It is, therefore, without a doubt, one of the best marketing activities you can undertake for your business.
In this process, if you want to guarantee a successful content marketing strategy, knowing and understanding your customer is critical. This goes without saying. By studying their patterns, whether in the form of purchases, website search history, cart clearance, and other indicators, it is possible to gain insights into what their behavioural drivers are. This, in turn, is very useful in understanding what to communicate to them for increased sales and profits.
Methods of engagement
Similar to the content you generate, the methods with which you engage with your customers also depend on the type of individuals you’re selling to. If your target market is a bunch of tech-savvy millennials or Gen Zs that double tap on Instagram as a way of communicating, your outreach needs to focus on these platforms.
For certain businesses that sell as fashion and makeup, influencer campaigns are often highly successful. Many vendors, nowadays, pair these with unique promos and giveaways, which prompt even the laziest, most-reluctant customers into action. When it comes to restaurants and cafe, giveaways and offers are more effective. This is the same for businesses that sell tech products and similar items.
In summary, studying your customers gives you more than a good content strategy, it also helps you understand which ways to get your message across more effectively.
SEO
Unlike a number of other phenomena, SEO does not lose any of its value as the hype surrounding it increases. This is because SEO is one of the best, most organic ways in which you can build up your market share, without spending a single dime.
SEO refers to the process of making your website content easily searchable through the use of strategic keywords, easy-flowing website design, and other tricks that make your site a top-ranking destination. With a sound SEO strategy in place, you can expect that when a lead searches online for a product or service that you sell, your website is among the first few search results they receive. SEO is, therefore, a critical part of marketing activity for B2C companies.
Key Takeaways
Any marketer worth his money knows that a product or service is only as good as the marketing that goes behind it. No matter how exceptional these are, if you can’t find the appropriate ways to express this to your target market, you’re not likely to enjoy any kind of success. By delving into some of the key aspects of B2C marketing, I hope this week’s blog was informative about which components are essential for a successful marketing strategy.
At Hype Insight, we aim to provide you with visionary marketing strategies and advice. Contact us today for more information about our services; success awaits!