Know the main differences between B2B and B2C marketing
Knowing who your target audience is is the first step to building an effective B2B or B2C marketing strategy. After all, there is no point in producing good content, having a good design and having a good product, if it is not reaching the people who will actually consume it.
In this sense, understanding the concepts of B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) marketing is essential.
Customer needs
When carrying out a B2B strategy, you will target a company, that is, a Legal Entity. So whoever is contacting you needs something for the company, which will likely be on a larger scale. So, if you sell pens, for example, and your audience is companies, it doesn't make sense to announce the price of a pen, but to assemble packages with several.
On the other hand, if your audience is B2C, you are targeting individuals, so they are buying for their own needs and consumption. That way it makes more sense to sell just one pen.
Communication channels and strategies
Can the two audiences be present in the same communication channels? Yup. However, this does not mean that your strategy should be just one – if you work with both audiences –, nor that you will get the full attention of both.
Think of it this way: a business decision maker has email and Instagram. But he uses email for professional purposes and Instagram only in his spare time as a form of leisure. Therefore, he may not want or not pay attention to your content on the social network. So sending him an email will be much more effective.
Likewise, an individual often makes impulse purchases, so a YouTube ad while they're watching a random video can grab their attention and be a great strategy.
In this way, you can use different strategies in the same communication channel to reach both audiences, or focus each channel of your company on one, but the ideal is to surround your customer from all sides.
Forms of content production
Content marketing, one of the Inbound Marketing strategies , consists of producing content that will attract your target audience. However, there are several ways you can use to produce your content.
Knowing the differences between B2B and B2C marketing, you must understand what makes your audience convert:
B2B: companies think A LOT before making a decision, as they expect their ROI (Return on Investment) to be satisfactory. In this way, presenting statistical data, using testimonials from other people and proving that this is a good investment are good strategies to use in your content production;
B2C: using mental triggers and appealing to an individual's emotions is much easier than using a company. In this way, creating a more humanized content that generates an identification of the person with your brand, providing a relationship, is an excellent strategy.
In addition, these contents can be produced in different ways:
- Videos;
- Texts;
– Info graphics;
– Concept maps ;
- Images;
– Social media subtitles;
- Etc.
Ultimately, it all depends on how your audience best receives the message.
Purchasing power and purchase decision
How much does your product cost? This also influences who you are selling to, after all, when putting together a personalized ad, income is one of the categories to choose from.
In this sense, it is worth considering that the purchasing power of a company is considerably greater than that of an individual. Therefore, if you work with a budget, you need to take this into account and understand that your average B2C sales ticket will be lower, because if you try to match the price, you will either sell very cheaply to companies or not sell to other customers.
Still, when thinking about your marketing strategy, you always want to talk to the decision maker, right? But getting to it in a company is a little more difficult, so be prepared to assemble more content during the B2B shopping journey, since the sales cycle is longer and passes through more than one person, in most cases. times.
So, when thinking about your B2B or B 2C marketing strategy, think about the content you will need to produce throughout the sales process. When talking to an individual, you are already likely to talk to the decision maker, probably the only one involved in the purchase, so you will need smaller and faster content. With a company, your process will be bigger.
Relationship
In either case, your strategy should be geared toward building a relationship. But a company buys much more for trusting its product, given the need to present statistical data that prove the real effectiveness of what you are offering.
A consumer, on the other hand, buys much more through identification with the brand and recommendations from other people she admires or knows. So, in this case, building relationships through Influencer Marketing is a good strategy.
The most important thing in the marketing strategy for building relationships is to make the person feel good. In this way, you need to provide good service and provide all the necessary assistance throughout the process that the person will be in your company.
Building a good relationship makes not only that sale you're making come to fruition, but also being the first to be contacted again if necessary.
In short, the most important thing in any marketing strategy you undertake, regardless of B2B or B2C, is to demonstrate the value of your brand. For this, as discussed, different methods will be used, but knowing and being confident of what you say is essential.
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