Content marketing can be a tedious job. From audience research to campaign launch, there’s a lot for a content marketer to cover. One has to create a content marketing strategy that should engage its audience.
A strong marketing scheme leads to a successful brand. When content marketing strategy is done right, you’ll definitely drive prospects and gain their loyalty.
Here, you are marketing to consumers directly, either through your blog, corporate site or online store. Hence, you need to know how to use content marketing effectively. This definitive guide will show you how to use B2C content marketing to improve organic traffic, broaden your reach to your target audience, and enhance brand awareness.
B2C Content Marketing Statistics
If you are considering B2C content marketing for your business, you might have reservations whether it will be beneficial for you in the long run. Well, it’s safe to say that content marketing is here to stay for a long time, and will be huge in the years to come. To help navigate in the world of content marketing, we’ve put together this collection of the content marketing statistics and trends that you need to know.
84% of organizations have a content marketing strategy.
In 2021, SEMrush asked over 1,500 marketing agencies and businesses to determine if they have a content marketing strategy. 84% said that they do. These businesses include business to consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies.
79% of companies use content marketing to generate quality leads.
Of the 79%, 78% of companies believed their content marketing was very successful in 2021 and have a documented content marketing strategy. This overwhelming number doesn’t seem to change this 2022.
3 out of 4 B2C marketers believe their content marketing is successful.
In a survey, 3 out of 4 B2C marketers believed that their organizations have been moderately, very, or extremely successful with their content marketing efforts.
Download a copy of the B2C Content Marketing Statistics
What is B2C Content Marketing?
B2C content marketing involves creating content that promotes products and services and is designed to appeal to a broad segment of consumers who may be interested in purchasing said products and services.
To further understand this, let’s compare B2C with B2B content marketing. In B2B content marketing, a business might be serving another business to engage with specific consumers. Their target audience isn’t any single individual but usually large marketing firms and stakeholders. While B2C content marketing reaches out to a wide array of consumers with different backgrounds but all are possible buyers of a product or service.
A B2B decision maker is thinking about the value the product or service can provide to their business. It means that when a business wants a particular product or service, they may do additional research, conduct interviews, take online courses, and attend live events. On the other hand, a B2C buyer considers the value a product or service could provide to their life personally. Their decision may be driven by rational thought, or it could be driven by emotion.
Hence, in B2C content marketing, there are several factors to consider when creating content that appeals to individuals. B2C maximizes the methods and best practices to promote products and services among consumers through the use of engaging content that also generates results. B2C content marketing campaigns help provide information that converts prospects into customers.
Benefits of B2C Content Marketing
In this day and age, there are far more consumers than businesses. A big advantage of B2C content marketing is that you speak directly to consumers with no intermediary. If you are considering B2C content marketing, you might be interested about some benefits it can bring in to your business. Here are a few of them.
1. Wider Reach
The most advantageous aspect of B2C marketing is its appeal to a broad segment of consumers. Even small companies operating at their own homes can sell their products or services to customers on the other side of the globe. Since more people are now active on social media, you can reach almost everyone.
2. Shorter Sales Cycle
Consumers don’t heavily care how you manufacture a product. They just want to know if it will suit them. For example, when a consumer decides to buy a new phone, they may place an order after reading a review or seeing your eye-catching ad without even looking at technical specifications. In contrast, a business buyer would probably look at functionality and technical aspects, as part of the market research and decision-making process. Hence, you can expect that in B2C marketing, there is a shorter time for customers to close a transaction.
3. Lower Costs
With a B2C model, you can forego overhead costs like infrastructure and staffing. Moreover, B2C can lower your costs with the introduction of an e-commerce element to your business. With e-commerce in mind, the availability to reach to customers anytime and anywhere can definitely boost profit.
Build Engaging and Results-Generating B2C Content Marketing Strategy
As was discussed before, B2C content marketing considers several factors to produce engaging contents that generate leads and sales. B2C content marketing is not an overnight success. On the other hand, it is long and carefully crafted to suit your goals and the consumer’s need. To make one for your brand, below are five content marketing strategies that you can follow.
1. Know your target audience.
The first step in any marketing plan is to determine the ideal buyers of your product or service. By doing so, you’ll be able to thin out the crowd and focus on these target consumers. As mentioned above, B2C products have many different potential buyers. Hence, the key here is to segment them into different personas to it make it easier for you when creating at targeted content.
You can use the techniques below for you to formulate your buyer personas:
- Customer interviews
- Sales feedback
- Market research
- Surveys
Of course, it doesn’t end with determining your audience. You still need to learn about them so you can understand and relate to them better. You should know the problems your consumers have, the results they are trying to achieve, actions they are willing to take, and the metrics by which they determine success. Such information is vital in content marketing. Why? Consumers subscribe and develop loyalty to products and services that solves their problem.
2. Timing is everything.
After you have established your buyer persona, create a buyer journey. The buyer journey is the path your customer takes—from awareness, to consideration, to decision. This journey, of course, has a specific timeline. It means that you should maximize buyer’s engagement and satisfaction for them to move forward along their buyer journey. Remember that the goal here is for them to reach the decision stage.
Timing is a critical aspect in content marketing. Even if you have a rich content but you don’t know when to share them, then it will be useless. It is important to know when B2C engagements are the highest. There’s a day in the week or time of the day when your buyers highly engage with content. This is your cue to share a relevant and rich content.
3. Make your content about them.
A big advantage of B2C content marketing is that you speak directly to consumers. In B2C, it’s the individual consumer who makes the final decision.
Consumers like brands that can relate to them. The best content is that which resonates with your audience and demonstrates that you share values and ideas. B2C consumers usually decide based on both rational and emotional thinking. Hence, every piece of content that you create should speak their language and tap into their emotions. The right emotional words can capture your prospects’ attention and give them a reason to do business with you.
4. Choose the right tool.
Once you know your audience and have a particular content in mind, you might be thinking that sharing them in the most trending social media is the best way to go. However, that’s not always the case. Each customer is different. Customers use multiple channels to complete one specific transaction. Hence, you need to have a robust digital marketing strategy and be present across different social channels to respond to customer needs and preferences.
The best social media platform for you to focus on will depend on your industry and type of content. This will differ from business to business, but here are some promotional techniques you can maximize for your brand:
- Email marketing
- Social media platforms
- Online communities
- Blogs
- Podcasts
5. Design is marketing.
We’ve discussed before that your content should tap into your buyers’ emotions. Well, design and user experience can help you with that. In today’s competitive market, design affects user experience.
Colors elicit emotions—some are too striking while some are relaxing. Depending on the intent of your product or service, you might want to maximize color combinations. Make sure your blog is aesthetically pleasing to look at and incorporates your brand colors
Aside from color, there are other factors to consider in the design of your website. Here are some of them:
- Mobile-Friendliness
- Responsive
- Accessibility
- Features
- Call-to-Action Statements
- Navigation
- SEO Optimization
- Customer Testimonials and Reviews
Top 4 B2C Content Marketing Examples
From a blog to a video channel and from engaging with fans on social media to creating content designed to go viral, B2C content marketing campaigns can take many forms. Here’s a look at four B2C content marketing examples.
1. FedEx in the Wild
After the brand’s failed attempt to be on Instagram, FedEx realized that it needed to talk less about itself and to let its fans tell the story. Thus, their novel campaign was born.
FedEx’s “In the Wild” B2C campaign encourages followers to take pictures of FedEx vehicles out in the world. The brand sifts through more than 1,000 pieces of user-generated content each week, choosing the most engaging and beautiful to post on its Instagram. Nine months after changing its tactic, the brand’s Instagram follower rate went up by more than 400 percent. It has more than 71,000 followers today.
2. Share-a-Coke
Coca-Cola’s Share-a-Coke campaign has taken several forms over the years. Their most recent novelty involves more than 1,000 first and last names, many of which are available in retail stores. The brand also introduced custom songs for each name, as well as the ability to customize eight-ounce bottles with any name, making drinking a Coke feel like a more personal experience. It’s certainly one of the most memorable B2C content marketing examples.
3. Spotify
For the last couple of years, Spotify has released end-of-year stats on top artists, songs, genres, and podcasts. They also do this on an individual level by sharing each user’s listening behavior, including minutes listened, favorite genres, artists, and songs.
This campaign naturally creates a lot of buzz for the brand, as users are eager to share their music preferences with their followers on social media.
4. Cadbury
Facebook ads are a great platform to provide a sneak peek of your product. Cadbury’s image product has done well as they took over Facebook with their mouth-watery tease of a Cadbury chocolate. Their trademark background color, purple, is a cool tone that stimulates appetite.
Generate Results with Effective B2C Content Marketing Strategies from Outsource-Philippines
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