B2C Marketing Strategies

"Authentic marketing is not the art of selling what you make but knowing what to make. It is the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that delivers satisfaction to the customers, profits to the producers and benefits for the stakeholders." - Philip Kotler

The famous marketing management author, Philip Kotler defines marketing as an art. Yes, it is an art. With n number of businesses and marketing bodies running actively in the market, the real art is to create a unique selling proposition (USP) which makes your business stand out from the rest. Speaking specifically in terms of B2C marketing strategies, the target market consists of consumers who may or may not be familiar with the business techniques and principles and will be more focused on getting good products at a lower price. Therefore, one needs to keep the consumer point of view as the base while building these strategies.

What is B2C Marketing?

By definition, B2C Marketing can be defined as the business that provides goods and/or services to a consumer based market. Some B2C marketing examples include retail consumer oriented online marketing, as well as otherwise, discount shopping outlets, etc. This marketing term 'B2C' is very rarely used these days but definitely played a significant role in the rapid growth and development of e-commerce in the late 20th century. Later when the capital markets went down, many B2C marketing companies transformed into a business to business marketing (B2B) company.

Difference Between B2B and B2C Marketing

Although both kinds are involved in selling goods or providing services, the difference lies in the basic motive. Let us discuss the basic differences between the two:

• As the term suggests, B2B marketing is the business which sells goods or provides services to other businesses. Whereas B2C marketing is when a business provides goods and services to consumer market.
• When it comes to B2C marketing strategies, your base should be consumer oriented. You need to emphasize more on the benefits and features of the products or services you are dealing with, whereas in B2B marketing strategies are built on a more profit oriented and detailed logic.
• The B2C marketing strategies are based on emotional decisions based on the consumers as you deal with different human beings having different expectations are priorities when it comes to purchasing the products. In B2B marketing, the strategies are based on pure knowledge and logic. There is very less or no personal emotion involved between the buyer and the seller as both the parties involved are businesses and look for their organizational benefits.
• In B2C marketing, where the end consumer are mostly household consumers, the main focus is on the benefit of the product to the consumer, they would be more interested in knowing how useful will the product or service be to them when it comes to using it personally. Whereas in B2B marketing,the focus is on the knowledge and detailed information as to how will the goods or services be beneficial to the business when it comes to saving money, resources and their time.

Some Useful B2C Marketing Strategies

It's obvious that the base of these strategies should be consumer oriented as already explained above, and only then they become successful marketing strategies. Below are some strategies that business houses adopt for successful marketing in order to reach the target consumer market.

Marketing Campaigns: Publicity always helps reach the target market in terms of creating awareness of the features and USP of the products. Successful marketing campaigns also arise some B2C marketing jobs like a company representative that directly reaches to the potential consumers and publicizes the products/ services offered by the company. This is mostly done in offline B2C marketing.

Online Advertising Strategies: Online advertising strategies such as PPC and Podcast are among the most effective and efficient sources of online advertising on various search engines, enabling a chance to create product awareness among the potential consumers using this internet marketing technique.

Extraordinary USP: This is one dominant factor that decides the success rate of marketing, specially when it comes to B2C marketing! Undoubtedly B2C marketing has more wider target market as it deals with consumer based products, but there is also more business competition! Therefore the key to effective B2C marketing strategy is to have an edge over the competitors and to clearly emphasize the same in your USP tag line! Create an impression that your competitors can't give you what you can!

So this was an insight on B2C marketing strategies and the difference between B2C and B2B marketing. Although both the marketing types are profit oriented, the approach to do so is different. The key to successful B2C marketing strategy is just to understand and create goods and services as per consumer expectations, and then not allowing the competitors to take away your market share. Since this marketing is based on dealing with consumer emotions, all you need to do is win their hearts!!