The Complete Guide to B2C Marketing Strategies

August 5, 2021 - 10 min read

Yuvika Iyer

Put on your marketing hat for a minute. Would you use the same marketing strategy for promoting a bottle of mouthwash as you would for promoting premium watches?

Both are B2C products, but each is designed for a specific audience. If that’s the case, shouldn’t their marketing approaches be different too?

In this complete guide to B2C marketing strategies, you’ll learn what B2C marketing is and how to craft a compelling B2C digital marketing strategy for success.

What is B2C marketing?

B2C stands for business-to-consumer. B2C marketing is the process of selling services and products to individual consumers.

Any organization that focuses on serving the needs, demands, and preferences of individuals can be called a B2C company. Here are some examples of B2C companies:

An over-the-top platform that offers premium movies and TV show subscriptions
A retailer that sells sporting goods and apparel
A resume writing service for college graduates and working professionals

B2C marketing vs. B2B marketing

While B2C marketing is focused on promoting products or services directly to individual consumers, B2B marketing concentrates on promoting products or services to other businesses or organizations. B2B marketing typically involves longer sales cycles, larger purchases, and more complex buying processes.

How does B2C marketing work?

The first step in B2C marketing is to create a simple marketing funnel that puts your brand in front of prospective customers. Here’s an example of a funnel:

Introduce the potential customer to your brand
Encourage the prospect to engage with your brand
Subtly lead the potential customer towards making a purchase

Once the funnel is in place, it’s time to create an effective marketing strategy that helps marketing teams streamline communication and boost campaign results.

How to start with B2C inbound marketing

Did you know that inbound marketing produces 54% more leads at over half the cost of traditional marketing tactics?

Inbound marketing helps companies build brand awareness, attract prospects, and engage with customers meaningfully. It entices prospects to your brand by showcasing its unique value additions.

Inbound marketing can be a great tool for increasing sales and delighting customers. But how do you start with B2C inbound marketing?

Develop a buyer persona

Every B2C business has a picture of its ideal customer. Go deeper and create an imaginary buyer persona with demographics, preferences, and related information.

Understand the buyer journey

Each buyer goes on a unique journey to reach your brand. Here's how it typically looks:

Awareness stage: Prospects realize they have a problem
Consideration stage: Prospects are clear on the reason behind the issue and are actively scouting for solutions
Decision stage: Prospects have shortlisted their preferred brands and are about to choose a product or service that resolves their problem

When crafting your inbound marketing strategy, make sure to create content that matches buyers on each of the three stages of this journey.

Create a content marketing strategy

94% of B2C marketers either have or are planning a content marketing strategy to boost brand revenue and awareness. Reaching your customers is easier with a solid content marketing strategy in place.

What is B2C content marketing?

B2C content marketing is the process of planning, creating, and distributing educational and helpful content for your prospective customers.

There are a few different kinds of content that fit well into a larger B2C content marketing plan:

Blog posts
Infographics
Case studies
Whitepapers
Videos
Audio recordings
Webinars
Product tutorials

Before creating any of these, make sure that they:

Are relevant for every stage in the buyer's journey
Address the needs in the buyer personas
Have a personal touch
Meet prospects where they are

How to plan a B2C digital marketing strategy

Traditional B2C marketing includes offline retail, pay-per-view movies, infomercials, and mall shopping. However, the internet has given rise to a whole new digital dimension for the sale of goods and services.

To help you create a successful B2C digital marketing strategy and a robust commercial framework for your brand, we've curated some key tips.

Drive engagement

Did you know that 72% of customers prefer engaging with marketing campaigns personalized to their specific needs?

Modern B2C shoppers are looking for great experiences. In today's world, there are thousands of competing products and services in all kinds of niches. As a result, catching a prospect's attention is not easy.

81% of customers say that they are willing to pay more for a better customer experience — to gain customers' love and trust, brands need to diversify across channels, create engaging content, and craft a strong social media presence.

Build trust on social

Each customer is different. Google research confirms that customers use multiple channels to complete one specific transaction.

For example, an omnichannel shopper may browse the brand's mobile app, visit their website, and walk into their brick-and-mortar store.

Marketers need to have a robust digital marketing strategy and be present across social channels to respond to customer needs and preferences. Since prospects can come from any source, marketing teams should employ a diverse mix of channels, including:

Email marketing
In-store brochures
Blogs
Podcasts
Social media platforms

Create a loyalty program

Having a loyal customer base can significantly enhance brand awareness, increase business ROI, and bring in new clients.

Want brand ambassadors? Loyal customers can fill that space quickly. Create specific programs that reward their loyalty to your business — examples can include offering:

A discount for their next purchase
A membership card with benefits
Free points with every purchase that can be redeemed for products

Personalization

According to the State of the Connected Customer survey, more than 79% of customers consider the customer experience provided by a B2C company equally important to its services or product offerings.

Customer experience can make or break a brand. 89% of customers say they would make a repeat purchase from a brand if they had a positive first experience.

Creating customer-centric and personalized experiences is non-negotiable for B2C brands across sectors. Tailoring marketing campaigns help marketers serve and engage existing and new customers with a personal touch.

Choose the right tool

Are you wondering how to personalize your B2C marketing? Deliver tailored experiences to your customers through collecting, segmenting, and reviewing customer data.

Processing huge volumes of customer data can be challenging. Having the right marketing automation tools can make a huge difference. With versatile marketing campaign software, you can analyze data quickly, allowing your team to stay focused on collecting leads and growing the business.

The Complete Guide to B2C Marketing Strategies 2 — Photo by Startaê Team on Unsplash

Top tips for creating a B2C marketing plan

A B2C strategy is not complete until you have a solid B2C marketing plan in place. To make one for your brand, choose content marketing strategies that fit your buyer personas.

Here’s an example: If your ideal demographic is under 40, a combination of brand loyalty programs and social media marketing can be more effective than traditional TV advertisements.

Play around with a few strategies to see which one fits best with your ideal audience and company goals. Here are some more tips to help you create a winning B2C marketing plan:

Connect with customers personally

B2C buying decisions are guided by emotions — so promote the sizzle, not the steak. Focus on creating personable and relatable connections with your target audience. Let that personal touch reflect in all places you connect with your potential customers.

Whether you're writing a blog, recording a podcast, or posting a story on Instagram, keep everything real, grounded, and authentic.

Use influencers to boost social proof

Did you know that 97% of consumers say that online reviews contribute significantly to their buying decisions?

Social proof can be highly valuable in B2C marketing. When a typical B2C customer wants to find out about an organization’s track record, one of the first things they do is search for reviews.

Having influencers promote your brand is an effective way to boost social proof. Influencer marketing can create trust and authenticity while enhancing brand awareness and potential reach amongst target audiences.

Go mobile-first

Mobile is the place to be. Diversifying across multiple channels is key in B2C marketing, but mobile still comes out on top.

63% of shoppers prefer reading online reviews on their smartphones before even speaking to in-store retail staff who may be standing right in front of them. Utilizing mobile marketing is highly valuable for local businesses that rely on search.

In light of the pandemic, it’s clear that focusing on in-store traffic will not work. With more than 55% of web traffic coming from smartphones, mobile users need to be guided towards a personalized sales experience.

3 B2C lead generation strategies that work

According to the 2021 Global Marketing Trends Report by Deloitte, modern customers are savvy, empowered, and quite unpredictable.

However, establishing a relationship with them need not be challenging. Striving to deliver a better client experience, showcasing social proof, and personalizing your marketing towards customer needs still works.

Once you understand your ideal customer and employ personalized marketing using B2C lead generation strategies, your company will see a significant increase in sales and revenue.

These widely used B2C lead generation strategies can help increase revenue, build brand awareness, and get results for your business:

Content marketing

In B2C marketing, companies market directly to the end consumers or decision-makers. Most B2C consumers don't make their decisions on facts or how helpful a product or service is, but by how they feel about it.

B2C marketers can leverage this by creating personalized content that draws out the audience's emotions. Nearly 47% of prospects view a minimum of three pieces of content on a product before making a purchase.

It's evident that creating compelling content is a B2C strategy your organization needs to reach, engage, and gain trust with consumers.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

In any B2C inbound marketing strategy, setting up your website for organic search traffic should be a high priority.

Search engine optimization helps bring potential customers to your website through different landing pages month after month without spending any paid advertisement dollars.

With more than 81% of customers conducting online research before buying anything, your organization needs to be visible to search engines through the use of keywords.

Social media

54% of the global population spends a daily average of 2 hours and 25 minutes on social media sites, and more than 91% of social media users use smartphones to access these platforms.

As the importance of social media in customers’ daily lives grows, great marketers must leverage this key statistic.

Social platforms present creative and engaging options for B2C brands to not only interact with their ideal audience but form deeper relationships with them.

What are the top B2C marketing channels?

When figuring out the most effective B2C marketing channels for your company, proceed with these three key steps:

Identify your marketing objectives, goals, and KPIs
Document the typical journey of your buyer persona
Do an in-depth competitive analysis of the marketing channels your competitors use

There is a diverse range of channels available for your B2C digital marketing strategy, including:

Email marketing: Promote your brand offerings by sending personalized emails to your list of potential customers for a higher return on marketing investment
Pay-per-click advertising: A paid marketing channel in which brands pay a fee every time a customer clicks on an online advertisement for their website
Social media marketing: Brands need to be present on the platforms where their customers are spending time to attract, engage and build strong relationships with them (these platforms include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat and TikTok)

How Wrike can help your B2C marketing campaigns

Whether you have an e-commerce store, brick-and-mortar business, or SaaS offering, digital marketing is something no business can ignore.

With customers searching online to educate themselves on potential purchases, your brand needs to be highly visible to have a significant impact on buyer behavior.

Streamline your marketing communication and centralize your content assets using collaborative marketing software that helps your teams stay on the same page. Turn routine data into valuable insights by using Wrike as your work management platform.

Create customized dashboards that show real-time data from advertising, social media, and marketing campaigns to create visual business intelligence reports. Make faster decisions by automating approvals, reducing review times, and optimizing marketing resources.

Employ a versatile combination of B2C digital marketing strategies to supercharge your organization's growth. Start a free two-week trial of Wrike to create your winning B2C marketing strategy and launch high-performing marketing campaigns.

Yuvika Iyer

Yuvika is a freelance writer who specializes in recruitment and resume writing.

#Digital Marketing #Marketing-Teams #Marketing Strategies #Content Marketing & Management

Marketing 10 min read

The Definitive Guide to Multi-Channel Marketing

Multi-channel marketing is a complex yet powerful strategy that marketers use to reach more leads using various platforms. By implementing multi-channel marketing, you can reach out to your customers at every stage of their journey. It also allows marketers to study behavioral patterns, making sending targeted messages relevant to their interests easier. Keep reading to discover what multi-channel marketing is and how to make the most of it with the right tools. What is multi-channel marketing? Multi-channel marketing is often defined as the strategy of communicating with prospects and customers across various channels. Instead of running a single campaign or tactic, marketers are now mirroring how consumers operate in various places all at once. It enables leads to take action in response to your offer or service without requiring them to purchase it using one particular channel. There are many types of channels that a business can use to reach potential customers. The most popular ones are: Social media Digital marketplaces Paid and native advertising Content creation Podcasting Blogging Direct mail marketing Mobile marketing Voice assisted search However, not all channels are created equal. The platforms you start with will largely depend on your industry, your audience, and your team’s workload capacity. For example, a B2B software startup may need to focus on building an engaged audience on LinkedIn before expanding to additional channels to build long-term success. With so many marketing channels to choose from, it's no wonder that many companies still struggle to create multi-channel campaigns that can stand out from the crowd. Yet, as the number of marketing channels continues to expand, it becomes more important to develop multi-channel marketing campaigns that can reach all of your potential customers. With multiple channels in play, it's also important to measure the effectiveness of each one. Through closed-loop analytics, marketers will be able to identify which channels were most effective and which ones were not. Why is it important to your business? Multi-channel marketing is important for the simple reason that customers are everywhere. Today's world is full of more channels than ever before, and the need to embrace multi-channel marketing is becoming a critical one. With the rise of digital marketing, customers have more control over their buying decisions. And for many, they’d prefer to consult multiple channels before coming to a conclusion. So it’s easy to see why having the ability to customize how people interact with your business is very helpful for increasing conversions. Another reason why it’s so important to participate in multi-channel marketing is that many consumers expect it these days. Think of it as an opportunity for your brand to stay consistent across various mediums, which helps keep it fresh and relevant. What are the benefits of multi-channel marketing? 1. Access valuable data By implementing multi-channel marketing, you'll be able to reach out to your customers at every stage of their journey. And by analyzing their behavioral patterns, you can send targeted messages that are relevant to their interests. 2. Improve campaign effectiveness Through multi-channel marketing, companies can create an integrated approach that combines various communication channels to reach their customers. This strategy allows them to measure and respond to each other in real-time. Plus, by creating a multi-channel marketing platform that enables marketers to connect and execute cross-channel campaigns, you can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing efforts while also reducing costs. For example, having more touchpoints in your funnel helps you collect more data. After all, knowing your audience can help determine the best way to reach them. 3. Develop strong ecosystems A good multi-channel marketing ecosystem ties all of your customer touchpoints into one overall experience. You're able to measure and react to each customer's behavior across all of your marketing channels so that your messages are always aligned with theirs. 4. Track wins accurately It can also help you measure your success and identify areas where your promotions are performing well. With that information, you’ll be able to perform A/B testing with the same message on a variety of channels. Or send different messages per platform once you drill down on who uses which channel for what. 5. Engage audiences more A multi-channel marketing campaign can help drive engagement and enhance a customer's experience at all touchpoints. For example, if a customer visits a shoe store, she might receive a discount code after choosing to receive a personalized message from the store. After choosing to receive a welcome email, she'll also be prompted to download the brand app. 6. Understand customers better A successful multi-channel marketing campaign is one that will help you understand your customer's communication and brand preferences so that you can constantly deliver relevant offers across all of them. After they've completed the onboarding process, you'll start providing targeted promotions based on their interests. For instance, if a user has saved their interests for future purchases, you can offer them limited-time discounts or promote products that match their saved interests. When your customers engage with your brand through various methods, you can use their behavioral insights to deliver highly personalized marketing messages. These insights can be used to inform content that's relevant to their interests. Multi-channel marketing examples Not sure where to begin? The simplest approach that many successful companies take is to add a complementary channel to an already established campaign. Here are some multi-channel marketing examples that illustrate this idea: Google Ads are used to promote various products and services. These extensions allow advertisers to easily integrate mobile and web activity into their ad campaigns. Some mail-order catalogs feature URLs or QR codes that direct viewers to a website. This feature is popular because it lets users order online without manually navigating to the online portion of the brand. Many television shows take advantage of the second screen effect by featuring a Twitter hashtag overlay during their shows. Some also verbally encourage their audience to participate on Twitter by following, retweeting, and using the hashtag while watching. Ways to improve your multi-channel communications Despite the advantages of multi-channel marketing, this approach does come with its own unique challenges. First, multi-channel marketing can be very costly. Second, it can take a while to develop a strategy and implement it. Third, it can also be difficult to measure the success of a campaign. With these common issues in mind, here are some simple yet effective ways to improve your existing campaigns: Be consistent. One of the most powerful factors that drive a successful customer experience is consistency. If your customers have varying experiences across all channels, then you run the risk of alienating them. Stay focused. Creating highly choreographed campaigns that are designed to influence multiple channels and devices is not realistic. Instead, marketers should constantly develop and coordinate campaigns that are designed to deliver consistent experiences across all platforms. Simplify everything. Creating targeted messaging that is both accurate and memorable is key to keeping your customers engaged. If you don’t already have one clear idea in all of your content, it’s time to reorganize your calendar. Research more. A clearly defined buyer persona helps marketers identify their ideal buyer and formulate their marketing efforts. Having a clear view of the customer is also critical to understand their behavior. It can help you identify areas where you can improve and develop new strategies to engage more effectively with them. Grow together. Your customer view must evolve along with their experiences. Doing so means constantly updating and revamping your data models and systems. Also, stay on top of marketing trends for each channel. Recognize your limits. Success doesn't come by being present on all of these channels. It comes by addressing the various areas of multi-channel marketing that are necessary to be successful. Use retargeting. Retargeting is a form of advertising that shows targeted ads to people who have bounced from your website while on other platforms. By understanding how many times website users have visited your pages and clicked on your ad, you can then customize your messages and offer them more relevant offers. Include activities. An activation sequence is initiated when a customer makes a purchase or opts in to a marketing offer across various platforms. This step typically begins by sending an email to confirm their account information. How does multi-channel marketing compare with omnichannel? Omnichannel and multi-channel marketing have one big thing in common. They both require you to know which of your channels are most likely to work for your buyer persona and your goals. Other than that, they are quite different. Unlike with omnichannel marketing, cross-channel marketing is the key to successful multi-channel marketing. It involves creating a strategy that works seamlessly across various channels and platforms. Cross-channel communications are also a great way to promote loyalty programs. You can reach out to your users through email and SMS and then provide them with in-app and web push notifications. A unique multi-channel marketing strategy helps you get a clear view of the buying cycle and identify opportunities to improve it. It also allows you to customize messaging and communications to reach each individual customer. For example, SMS marketing and push notifications have become popular channels for personalized engagement. This also means that channel combinations are as important as individual channel strategies since some channels work better with each other than others. For example, TikTok videos are easy to share on Instagram and vice versa. Multi-channel marketing is also reliant on your team’s bandwidth and skillsets. You probably have team members who are experts in different channels. It's possible to end up with a disjointed approach where each team member has their own channel expertise. That’s where a well-rounded marketing team with niche experts for every channel comes in. Omnichannel marketing’s biggest limitation is reach. There are different demographics of people who interact with each channel type. This means that a singular channel approach may not lead you to the right leads in the right way. Additionally, even if the channel is something everyone is familiar with, such as email, there will be differences in the ways each demographic uses the platform. And although messaging should be consistent across all channels, you'll also have to be strategic about what works on each platform. How can I improve my multi-channel engagement? If you want to improve your multi-channel engagement, you have to master the art of the follow-up. Whether it’s ad retargeting, email, or another channel, your channels should all work together to achieve seven or more touchpoints with each lead. Make sure to always offer value when you communicate with a warm lead. That value could be a free trial, helpful content, or anything else that will support your target audience. Also, track the data from your follow-ups the same way you track your initial interactions. Learn from and tweak your strategy over time to find the right combinations of messages and channels that will create a magnetic buyer's journey. What are the challenges of multi-channel campaigns? Content creation for one channel is hard enough. But creating content for multiple channels in a way that ensures they’re all working together cohesively? Even tougher. Still, having a clear goal and roadmap for how you’ll use each channel will make decision-making that much faster. Also, never be afraid to recycle content across platforms. Sometimes people need a few different mediums to learn something new. What are the different types of marketing mediums? Marketing mediums include online and offline channels. Popular online channels include social media, email, paid advertising, SEO, and mobile marketing. Offline channels typically use the mediums of print, television, mail, and radio. How to plan your multi-channel marketing strategy with Wrike A good multi-channel marketing automation system is essential to track all of your leads' interactions and engagement. It can also help you make better decisions and take action on your leads' unique paths. That’s where Wrike comes in. Wrike is a marketing project management software that allows marketers to plan, execute, and analyze multi-channel marketing campaigns. Simply create a new project for your strategy plus additional projects for each deliverable so that every deliverable has a beginning and end that are easy to track. To create unique structures for your many channels and subprojects, add tasks for each step in the process. For example, you can designate content drafting, design elements, and publication as separate tasks by channel. Each task can include approvals from other team members and automatically notify whoever is responsible for the next task once this step is complete. After that, add milestones for the deliverable share or publication date. This will create a deliverable calendar you can share with stakeholders to summarize all current and future initiatives. You can also use Wrike as a centralized marketing data hub with supplementary document and asset storage. Not only does creating a centralized marketing data hub get that single customer view, but it also consolidates all the customer data in one place. You can also use Wrike to create an integration strategy. An integration strategy involves seamlessly weaving various platforms and methods to enable organizations to manage all of their customer communication activities across various channels. This strategy could: include a unified inbox to track all of your customer communication a marketing operations platform that helps you manage all of your publishing and analytics activities a CRM that tracks interactions and engagement Choosing the right multi-channel marketing tool is challenging when you need to manage more than one platform at a time. Wrike helps marketers create fluid and foolproof roadmaps with the help of advanced features perfectly suited for simplifying even the most complex projects. Start your free trial today.

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The Complete Guide to B2C Marketing Strategies