What is B2C Marketing
What is B2C Marketing
B2C marketing or business-to-consumer marketing describes the measure of winning private consumers for your product or service. The campaigns have a broad focus, even with specialized products or services with a regional focus, it takes a great deal of effort to address the customer group in a targeted manner. Products are mostly self-explanatory, and consumers often make short-term purchasing decisions on an emotional and logical level. In B2C marketing, the message should therefore be conveyed in a simple manner, ie short, concise, easy to understand and of benefit to the consumer.
Difference between B2C and B2B marketing
Marketing for B2C differs from B2B in a few ways as follows:
- Target group: The target group in B2C is significantly larger and therefore more heterogeneous, which means that mass advertising such as print, TV or radio is used.
- Approaching customers: Advertising content and texts must appeal to the average consumer, and there is less use of technical/foreign terms. Furthermore, consumers are reached on an emotional level instead of with facts.
- Drive/Motivation: Consumer decisions are mostly influenced by emotions, such as hunger, desire, status or cost. A consumer is more interested in the price/performance ratio or immediate problem solving.
- Fun: In B2C marketing, consumers tend to want to be entertained, consume useful and humorous content that is "easy to digest".
- Customer loyalty : Customer loyalty is much closer in B2B, you want to enter into a relationship with the brand, the company and plan for the long term. Nevertheless, it has also been recognized in B2C that addressing customers as individually and personally as possible is an advantage.
- Purchase decision: In B2B, the decision-making process is more complex and shaped by several departments, so it lasts longer.
Tools in B2C Marketing
The measure in B2C marketing can be controlled using four parameters:
- Pricing policy: The decisive factor for consumers in B2C when deciding on a product is the price. The pricing policy should take the positioning of your brand into account, since private consumers are also willing to spend more money for a branded product, even if it does not represent any added value or advantage. Short-term discount campaigns, the famous threshold price and the suggestion of a limited edition are also possibilities here. In the case of expensive products, leasing or financing should be offered.
- Product policy: Promotional features such as exclusive packaging, product design, colors or fonts bring a higher recognition value and contribute to sales. The product policy and its design must in turn go hand in hand with the price policy.
- Distribution policy: Products can be positioned in the market by means of direct sales or an intermediary. Direct sales enables direct customer contact. This means that you receive unfiltered feedback on dissatisfaction or satisfaction with your product and can communicate directly with them without hindrance. Through intermediaries you have a higher market coverage, which leads to awareness of your product or brand. However, through intermediaries you become dependent to a certain extent, which can lead to a poorer margin.
- Communication policy: With emotional and memorable messages from your brand, the consumer feels comfortable with you and your product. This is a crucial and important point in B2C marketing, since products can usually be easily compared with one another.
Goals in B2C marketing
Even if a broad mass of consumers is to be addressed, it is important to design and plan the advertising as effectively as possible. Media such as TV, radio or print magazines in particular can generate a high degree of wastage, whereas the consumer would like to have the feeling of being perceived as an individual. Building a strong brand and the associated authenticity is expected. 90% of consumers are willing to pay more for a product if it is accompanied by an improved customer experience .
- Increase your brand awareness
- improve the engagement rate
- generate more leads or sales
- Creating brand ambassadors (influencers) and winning them over
- increase the company's sales
- strengthen customer loyalty and retention
- to increase the customer livetime value
KPIs in B2C marketing
The success of your B2C marketing measures can be measured and improved using various KPIs:
- Engagement Rate: Personal social connections (acquaintances, friends, family) play a decisive role in the decision to buy a product. Recommendations are crucial here and even ahead of the social media channels.
- Traffic : The evaluation of the traffic gives conclusions about the traffic channels, the user behavior and consequently the customer journey .
- Conversion rate : The rate and success of the respective marketing measures can be determined by tracking and assigning the conversion.
- Lead quality: An incoming request or a purchase should be checked internally for its quality. Thus, better decisions can be made as to which channels, keywords , customer approach, texts or advertising campaigns deliver the desired target group.
Conclusion
The instruments in B2C marketing are the same as in other areas, but are clearly different. A mass market is addressed here and rational sales arguments play a subordinate role. Emotional connection, a connection to the brand and the good feeling that comes with it play a more important role. B2C marketing has changed in such a way that the effectiveness of wastage should be avoided and customers want to be addressed more individually. Be sure to observe data protection (GDPR) in B2C marketing!