Understanding B2B and B2C marketing and How to Create Epic Experiences

Knowledge is important in business and keeping it up to date is essential. So you shouldn’t get stuck on the same set of knowledge. You have to research and know more about the industry you’re working on. Along the way, you’ll encounter terms that are hard to understand at first glance but are easy to understand as long as you do your part.

B2B and B2C are some example of those terms. But, they aren’t just keywords. They actually play a huge role in business. So you really have to know about them. Here we’ll discuss more about them.

As you can see, there are some small businesses which sell their products or services to other businesses. That’s what we call Business to Business or B2B marketing. Meanwhile, those who sell to consumers are called B2C in short for Business to Consumer. That’s right; these abbreviations represent two different marketing relationships. It is important because whom you sell to makes a difference in what marketing methods are effective.

Business to Business

Business to business relationship requires being developed and on-going. Businesses like this should expect that their sales process is longer compared to that of B2C relationships. B2B decision making may also go through different levels. For example, the salesperson meets with the departmental manager, who then has to get approval from the business owner before the sale is closed.

Business to Consumer

B2C business includes Housecleaning services, restaurants and retail stores. Websites that offer consumer products are also B2C. The B2C sales cycle is shorter as it involves the business directly dealing with the consumer encouraging them buy the product right away.

Acknowledging the difference and knowing your strengths

Now, knowing the nature of the two, we also have to recognize that there are different marketing tactics used in B2B and B2C. One difference is in the methods of advertising, promotions and publicity which may not work the same way because each business has different targets. For example, Television or radio advertisements may be effective when you’re reaching out to direct consumers but may not when your market is composed of businesses.

Generally speaking, there is something that a business must provide to achieve success regardless of its target market. That is delivering relevant and engaging experiences to your customers at the right moment, every time.

You also have to make sure you are giving seamless experiences across all channels. Keep in mind that both consumer and business buyer expect a seamless experience across multiple touch points and channels.

Remember that your high-quality products can still mean nothing without a compelling and personalised customer experience. So it is important to prioritise customer experience and consider it always in every business decisions because in reality, people do not remember the products but instead the experiences they had in the process of purchasing.

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A Guide to a Timely Marketing Strategy for Digital Security Companies

If you are operating as a digital security company, it is safe to say that existing online is important to grow but what’s crucial is to have a powerful marketing strategy that will make your brand leave a significant mark on your target market’s memory.

One of the best and up-to-date strategies that works best on customers is being conversational. This is to promote interaction and engagement. But the next question that may come to your mind is “how?” Read through if you want to know the answer.

First of all, we have to acknowledge the different types of customers and the role that they play for you to determine how you will be able to engage with them with your marketing strategy.

So, you have first-time customers. This is where a homepage conversational strategy is considered to work best because as you engage with a group of people, a subgroup belonging to their peers will also be reached; creating a funnel-like effect. With an effective chatbot, instead of just starting a simple conversation just like in the traditional ways, you could engage with a continuing conversation where you could be linked not only to the direct viewers but also to their colleagues.

The ideal setup should involve a chatbot popping up with the sales rep and greeting the viewer with an introduction about the company’s server security tools, product recommendations such as firewalls and VPNs, to be followed by a close-ended question.

Meanwhile, known contacts who aren’t yet customers should be dealt with by directing them to resources needed to help them make a decision. This will help them form a good initial impression and establish trust and positive connection. A plan is needed to determine common needs and motivate questions that will lead to discovering the best solutions to fulfill the needs.

Your next target will be your patrons or returning visitors which would serve not only as your costumers but also as your own contacts with their desire to be known and feel known. Dealing with them requires a greater level of customer service experience. This could be achieved with a chat tool that identifies your current customer base and attends to their questions with accurate answers as these are what the customers immediately need. You can also create a knowledge-based document that answers common questions but could lead to a conversation with your support team.

The final strategy for conversational marketing at your digital security brand is to reach those anonymous viewers or account-based marketing (ABM) leads. You may not know who they are, but you can know where they work based on data. So, you can still convert them into known leads.

This discussion may be fruitful but this is just the beginning of the conversation; as it only explains the start of your relationship with your customers. But, knowing this is a great thing already as it is essential to identify the right website viewers to know the appropriate approach that you must employ.

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The Use of Law of Probability & Market Population Towards Effective Marketing

Advertising and marketing works hand-in-hand with your buyers’ profile and demographics. So it is crucial that you have a perfect understanding of your target market before you invest on your promotionals. This way, you can make sure that your advertising will work and that your spent resources would be redeemed through return of investment.

I won’t be easy especially if you are a startup. But, it’s also not as hard as it seems. Don’t be overwhelmed of the numbers that comes with your target market because the reality is, to understand their demographics doesn’t mean you have to deal with them individually because that will really take a lot of time.

Instead, you can employ the law of probability where you can categorize them by groups to help you predict the possible outcomes. You can do this by digitally gathering information before analysing the results.

At some point, whether you like it or not, research will be a mandatory and useful tool. Going back to your customer groups, these generalized factions ideally covers not only demographic information like age, location and income, but also psychographic information like interests, reasons for buying and concerns.

Here we’ll discuss further why you should do a wide approach to understand it’s importance in effective marketing.

First and foremost, let’s talk about how you’ll survive the online world. Given that it is fast phased and people see things come and go. But relax, because technology is on your side and there are limitless developments which can improve how you can deal with your customers. Now, with the right tools, targeted ads can be easily made and integrated on different online platforms. This of course, would come with a price. Though, you can plan it out to find for better and cheaper alternatives. You just have to make sure that you will be able to gather the necessary information such as location, age, and history.

 

 

Now, let’s say that you were able to accomplish these, you also have to take note that as time passes by, your customer’s behaviour will change along with the development of the technology. So, there will come a time that you really have to cope and update your knowledge, your plan, your strategy, everything…

Set time periods where you can analyze your business’ current position, productivity and performance. Use this knowledge to identify areas where you can improve to achieve better outcomes. Perhaps, faster way to adapt, know trends and customize relevant advertisements that will be effective to attract customers.

Remember, assumptions should be turned to educated guesses. This is the rule that will yield results rather than rely on pure luck. I don’t know if you will be able to absorb and digest everything that we discussed here. But that’s alright because everything takes time.

Still, it is important that you understand and define your customers. With that,  you will now have a much better idea of who, how, and where you should be marketing to achieve the greatest level of success. With all this, your ad targeting and communication will be much better as there will be increased engagement on your social media channels to a greater ROI for your online ads.

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How To Have An Immersive, Dynamic Storytelling That Is Hard To Ignore

Unlike when watching television, people have the power over their activities on the internet or social media and they seem to like it so much because here, they are free to fast-forward or skip commercials and advertisement. However, this has posed a huge challenge for businesses which now needs to go a long way to boost consumer engagement. This includes sponsoring potentially viral videos on YouTube and other social media channels and even partnering with film producers to create short documentaries about their products.

From this, companies have learned that the best branded content and stories are those that are immersive, dynamic, and interactive as well as integrated into consumers’ lives. In fact, survey shows that marketing leaders are aware that dynamic storytelling is essential for their success. It is true because integrated brand experiences reign supreme in garnering consumers’ attention, and creativity and content are still key to capturing audience members’ hearts and minds.

Here are the traits that should be in your brand storytelling:

Engaging

Plainly telling a story is not always enough because people nowadays won’t react the same way and not always in accordance to what we expect. This is why there is a need not only on the story that we are want to deliver but also in the manner that we are delivering it.

It is essential to trigger an emotion, feeling and eventually reaction from our audience. From that reaction we open doors for possible change in their behavior. Ideally, their response should be aligned to what we intend it to be or else, we might have used an inappropriate story or they might have taken it with another context. In that case, it’s still okay. Keep in mind that there are people who are just spontaneous. What’s important is that the story was served and the person was able to understand the meaning of it.

Deep

Stories should be easily understandable but must not only have a shallow meaning or else, it might not leave a mark. Usually, people easily forget things especially when it failed to find a sense on it. So, one must know how tackle a topic that will trigger the audience’s thinking and reasoning.

Flexible

Your storytelling not only relies on sheer creativity and imagination. Your content should also be backed by facts or data meaning you will have to use numbers, figures and terms from time to time. However, even information change as time passes by. So you have to learn how to adapt to change and innovate to make your current message deeper and better.

Diverse

This means your story must be able to touch different faces of life so that it would apply to different kinds of people and their different kinds of living; this aims to recognise that we all have our differences but somehow we could be connected at some point. Diversity should not only be seen on the story itself but also on its delivery. Technology must be utilised to improve the way you present your story.

Dynamic storytelling is the foundation of effective advertising today. But you can’t capture your audience with plain drama. Instead, you have to use a combination of the things listed above as a strategy to catch their hearts and minds. So, that even if your message is not as emotional as others, still you would create impact, deliver the message and change how they see and act towards things.

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Understanding Instagram Hashtags

2019 is almost over, we are all aware that Instagram hashtags have ruled over this year not only in terms of letting us know the trend but also by helping retailers to market and gain profit and it is expected to continue doing so in the upcoming new year. So, for those who still don’t have enough knowledge about them and how they can be used in business, here we’ll have a discussion about the most recent hashtag features.

Posts on social media sites such as Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram were all being used to advertise and market products but it is observed that using at least one Instagram hashtag improves the engagement of these posts meaning the number of people that it reaches also increases. So, there are higher chances of sales or awareness. There might be a lot of changes that has happened throughout the year but one thing remained constant: the fact that Instagram hashtags are importance and here’s why.

Instagram hashtags work by organizing and categorizing photo and video content. Knowing how to use them properly can help brands to easily get discovered by new audiences on Instagram where eventually they can gain more engagement with new followers and customers for their business.

Each story and posts that are made on the account can have a caption and up to 30 hashtags for faster and easier content discovery. Hashtags can now be used on almost anything not only in promoting your Instagram community but also to highlight a business’ branded content and announce their Instagram campaigns.

Aside from that, the effectiveness of Instagram Hashtag can now be monitored through the Post Insights feature which allows users to analyze the engagement garnered on your posts with the help of your hashtags. This helps determine if the choice of hashtags is correct or if there’s any need for improvement.

If you are aware of the Instagram Graph API, the Instagram team was now able to expand it to include hashtag analytics where users can measure the performance of their Instagram hashtag. This helps identify which hashtags work best for your target market.

You can use this information to know which among the hashtags you are using are driving the most engagement on your posts. Once you find your top performing hashtags, you can easily use them more often to bring in more engagement and gain traction for your business.

Another latest update on Instagram is the ability to follow hashtags. This is deemed useful especially for those who want to be updated on various topics through a hashtag related to a user’s interests.

With this function, brands and businesses have the opportunity to regularly appear in their follower’s feed. So, in case you have a branded hashtag for your business, you can easily invite your followers to also follow your unique hashtag and have your content appear in their feed.

There are also clickable hashtags which can be put into a user’s Instagram bio. This can be used by businesses to convert engagements into website visits.

Lastly, hashtags can now be added to your Instagram Stories, giving business accounts yet another way to get their content discovered. Doing this will make a story searchable on the Search & Explore page. Now, anyone who searches for that hashtag in Instagram will be able to see your brand’s story!

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POP Marketing and Design Influence Shopper Behaviour

Point-of-purchase (PoP) marketing is proven to be an effective strategy in marketing as it delivers brand and marketing messages to a brand’s target customers at the point of purchase either online or in a retail store using colour, logo, patterns, tagline.

 

In-store and retail PoP marketing has most to do with quick purchases while digital PoP is focused on clicks and awareness which is vital to a company’s success. Regardless of platform used, its main goal is to market to shoppers who are already on the site and ready to make a purchase. Using this strategy, you invest on bringing out experiences and making your customers live it. This means making your shoppers have a sensorial connection to a brand through touch, taste or even smell.

Whether you do it online or in your store, you will be required to customize either your website or your store’s interior. This is to make each part of it as a marketing and advertising tool to boost your sales. Compared to traditional form of selling, it is not only about capturing the customer’s attention but standing out from your competitors meaning you have to use your resources and domain to influence the decision-making of your shoppers.

One of the trends today is about making honest origin stories of the brand instilled on the display or in the promotions and positioned somewhere the customers can easily see. It is about telling a story to establish your brand through messages that customers will encounter on their trip across your shop or your sites.

The possibilities that you can do with PoP marketing is limitless. There is right or wrong format; only effective and ineffective ones. It also differs on the nature of your brand, or the products or services that you offer. But it could go as wide as your imagination can reach.

 

To be effective, a business must know how a shopper thinks and must be able to inject their messages on their experiences making them know the brand more and making them realize the need of buying an additional product even at the last minute. It’s up to you whether you do this through words, images or a combination of both.

Another thing that makes PoP effective in marketing is when you give customers simple surprises such as free shipping, promos or discount at the checkout of your brick-and-mortar shop. You can also use connecting tools such as a review or rating system which makes them express their sentiments about your service and products which can be used to entice other shoppers.

 

While doing all of this, what you must do is to gather data and information from your customers in the form of paper and online forms which can give you knowledge of their buying behaviour and habits. You can then use this information to suggest purchases during checkout that are tailored towards that consumer and whatever purchase they are making.

 

To know more about PoP products, you can visit clipstrip.com by Clip Strip Corp. and see the effective uses of the PoP strategy

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