Consumers are everywhere. They have desires to be met and problems to be solved. The only thing standing between you and them is access. Done right, B2C digital marketing delivers that access. It encompasses the strategies used to get your business’s product or services in front of consumers where they are shopping for them.
It seems like only yesterday, a website and Facebook page were enough of an online presence, but the digital landscape grows and evolves rapidly. Each year brings new technologies and tools.
At the core of reaching the right people online is knowing your customer well. If you know who your message is for, you can find out where they congregate online or how to optimize for them to find you. A well-developed customer persona helps you target the right online channels and improves your marketing ROI.
It’s Still an Emotional Appeal
Where consumers shop and research has changed, but the reasons they buy are the same. Buyers may comparison shop, read reviews, and scour product details, but they buy more based on how they feel than how they think.
Successful B2C brands know this. Online tools provide the data for them to refine their message, design, and call to action to maximize response and conversions. Insight into customers’ motivations and desires helps them design marketing materials that connect with their audience quickly.
So how and where can B2C brands effectively access their target customer? Here are seven digital marketing strategies that work.
1. Use Contests to Drive Engagement
People love the prospect of winning something for nothing. Contests are most effective when the rules are simple and the prizes seem valuable. You can engage customers with a fun contest on social media, by email, or on your website. Contests are easy to put together and manage.
What do your customers find valuable? What excites them? It’s not always the dollar value of the prize that drives people. Sometimes it’s the social status or meaning of an item that makes it shine. Select an award that lines up with your customers’ values and reinforces your brand’s message.
In addition to a source of new leads, contests are a rich source of new data. People are willing to exchange some information, like their name and email, for a chance to win the prize. Minimize the barriers to entry, but use the contest as a data-gathering opportunity.
Another exciting prospect of contests is social sharing. You can motivate fans to spread the word by giving them more chances to win when they refer friends who register. Voting contests, where contestants vote on different options, can also inspire people to share.
Contests are most effective when used as part of a comprehensive social media strategy. It is essential to familiarize yourself with local regulations before launching your contest. Each state has its own contest laws.
2. Construct Your Content Marketing Funnel
The primary purpose of B2C marketing is to increase sales, but part of what sustains a flow of sales is brand awareness. Your content marketing funnel includes the whole package. A well-developed content funnel:
- Delivers value to the consumer
- Increases brand recognition
- Brings in website traffic
- Grows your email list
- Uses compelling copywriting to convert shoppers
- Attracts them back for more
Though labor-intensive, content marketing is an impressive strategy for capturing and nurturing leads online. Depending on the content you create, B2C content marketing can also help develop your online search presence.
Effective online content is:
- Easy to scan
- Valuable to the reader
- The answer to a question your prospects are asking
- A better or more complete answer than your competitors’
3. Optimize Your Content for Search Engines
As long as your team is consistently creating quality content to build online authority and credibility, it’s crucial to optimize for search engine ranking.
To win at SEO, get into the mindset of your customers. When they are shopping for your product or service, how do they search for it on Google? Starting from user intent builds a stable foundation for a business’ content strategy.
The basics of SEO optimization include:
- High-quality content that your customers appreciate
- On-page SEO (page speed, title tags, meta descriptions, images)
- Keyword strategy developed from user intent
Content strategy can seem like a long haul because it doesn’t give the immediate results of paid online ads. Content marketing, paid ads, social media, and SEO all work together to amplify results.
Content marketing can meet buyers at any point in their purchasing journey. Shoppers could be researching, comparing options, or ready to buy. You want content that targets all these stages.
4. Pay-Per-Click and Social Media Ads
A weak or confusing landing page can foil even the most brilliant paid media strategy. Before you launch any ad campaigns, set up a landing page, and test it to make sure it converts.
Between Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads on Google, image and video ads on Facebook or Instagram, and the deployment of re-marketing ads, several paid channels are used to access customers. The best digital strategy is to combine high-quality content with paid ads and SEO.
One of the advantages of PPC advertising is how easy it is to measure and track. You get rapid and direct feedback on how well your headlines and landing pages drive traffic and convert.
5. Build a Social Media Following
The digital marketing world evolves rapidly, and social media is no exception. Each platform has its own audience, post specs, and ideal format. The first step to launching a successful social media campaign is to build an organic audience on your platforms of choice.
If your business is new to social media, here are ways to build your organic audience:
- Share relevant posts for your audience
- Engage with all comments
- Follow and interact with influencers in your area of expertise
- Create a branded hashtag for your brand and customers to share
Your Target Audience Market May Not Be on Facebook
Facebook remains a powerhouse among social media platforms, but it has been losing younger users and skewing toward a more mature audience. Forty-one percent of its users are over the age of 65.
The younger demographics tend to prefer the more visual and interactive experiences offered by Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
Instagram Holding Steady in Second Place
Aside from YouTube, Instagram has the second most active users after Facebook. Launched in 2010, Instagram’s meteoric rise took it past one billion users in 10 years. Much of its user base is the under-30 younger demographic.
With social media marketing, you want to confirm your target market is on a platform before committing to it.
6. Employ Chatbots to Expand Customer Service
Gaining ground since 2016, chatbots are artificial intelligence (AI) software that can answer basic questions and help users complete their goals.
The magic of AI helps chatbots interact with people naturally, primarily through text chat windows. Like excellent customer service professionals, chatbots use what they learn from customer experiences to improve their service consistently.
Seventy-four percent of users prefer chatbots when looking for a quick answer to a simple question. Chatbots are can be useful in a variety of way such as:
- 24/7 service with no holidays
- Instant responses to customer queries
7. Retarget to Re-Engage
It costs less to sell to an existing customer than to bring in a new one. For one thing, you know they have some interest in your products and services. Retargeting and re-engaging with past customers is a must B2C digital marketing strategy. It can be done through paid advertising or content marketing.
There are two goals with retargeting. The first goal is to increase sales. The second is to build a lasting customer relationship.
To convert them from a single sale to a lifetime of repeat business means keeping your brand visible in their lives. Something as simple as a Facebook ad or an email offer can revive interest in your brand. Even if they don’t buy each time, your name is at the top of their mind next time they need your product.
Find the Best Places Online for Your Business
Effective digital marketing strategies help you reach targeted prospects where they are shopping online. Unlike traditional methods that blast your message to a wide audience, online, you can target narrow audiences and deliver your message to the right shoppers.
The more you understand your customers and their pain points, the easier it is to drive engagement. Fun contests, authoritative content, SEO, a social media presence, accessible customer service, and strategic retargeting expand brand awareness and bring in sales.
At J&L Marketing, we are digital marketing experts but don’t stop there. You can see how we helped one client immediately break their sales record by improving their digital marketing strategy. More importantly, the dealer’s business continues to grow. We can integrate our digital services to combine direct mail with an email campaign, a responsive landing page, and a trackable phone number.
A multi-touchpoint campaign puts you at the forefront of your customers’ minds when a need arises. Never miss a customer by strategically serving your audience with J&L Marketing.
