How to Use Instagram for Marketing in 2021

Instagram is a hugely popular app for using for sharing photos and video media.

Instagram was one of the top 5 most downloaded app with over a billion active users in 2020.

The app is immensely popular with Millenials and Gen Z, around 63% of Instagram users are between the ages of 18 and 34.

If the age of your target customers is under 35, you need to be marketing on Instagram.

Don’t know where to start? Read on — I’ve got you covered.

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What is Instagram?

Since its launch in 2010; Insta, as its users lovingly refer to it, has become one of the most popular social media platforms of a generation. 

Mike Krieger created Instagram to allow users to edit and share pictures and videos from their mobile devices.

With this emphasis on visual sharing, the platform works similarly to other social networks like Facebook or Twitter. 

Users create a profile and have a news feed made up of content from accounts they follow and their interaction to scroll through. Users interact with other users by commenting, liking, tagging and private messaging.

“What is this trendy thing called Instagram that all the cool kids seem to be into? It’s been around for a few years, quietly picking up traction mostly thanks to everybody’s new obsession with mobile photography…” (Moreau, 2018)

The popularity of Instagram

Instagram is most popular amongst users aged 18–34 years. It is the second most accessed network behind Facebook.

Instagram has over one billion active monthly users, more than 60 million photos posted each day, 1.6 billion daily “likes” given, and 500 million Instagram Stories posted.

Users browse for an average of 53 minutes per day, and around 60% of active users visit the site daily, a further 21% weekly.

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Instagram as a Marketing Tool

Instagram helps businesses to enhance their visual storytelling rather than just presenting textual information. With the number of active users and the ability to create and share different content types, Instagram can be a great marketing tool for the right businesses.

According to Social Sprout, the top three industries working with Instagram influencers are luxury brands, sports clothing, and beauty brands.

90% of Instagram users follow at least one business, and there are over 25 million business profiles on Instagram. 83% of users have purchased brands exposed to via Instagram. 

So, there is plenty of potentials, but you will need to optimise your profile and have a strategy to stand out amongst the crowd.

“Different social media platforms have become a natural part of companies’ marketing strategies, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises.” (Virtanen, Björk, & Sjöström, 2017)

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Setting up and Optimising Your Instagram Profile

As your name, enter your business name, so you are recognisable — the same with your username, which is a name unique to your profile. Your profile tag we be @username, and your URL is www.instagram.com/username.

Users can search for your name and username, so again, pick a username that is recognisable and easy to find. If another profile already has your business name, make sure your business name is in your username. 

Both these names can be up to 30 characters long.

Your Instagram bio description needs to make a great first impression, and you must do this in 150 characters. 

Therefore, it needs to be a concise summary of who you are and how you add value to incentive followers, with a hint of personality.

Instagram bios are not searchable, so do not worry about cramming keywords in there.

Your Instagram profile photo should be your logo. or another familiar image. The recommended size is 1350 x 1080px.

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Business Account

There are two choices for creating your account: logging into your Facebook account or signing up via phone or email. A business account should sign up with a business email, so your Instagram profile is not linked to your personal Facebook account.

A business account is a must, as they have access to several functions unavailable to a personal account, including:

• Instagram Insights to analyse how you are performing.
• Instagram ads to promote and reach a larger targeted audience.
• Instagram Shopping to showcase products and services.
• Contact information for people to call or email you.
• A call-to-action button on your profile, such as order food or book now.
• A Category that tells people what industry you are in or the purpose of your profile.
• URL linking to your website or other external sites that of your choice.

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Instagram Settings

Via the three stacked lines in the upper right-hand corner of your profile, click on settings down the bottom.

There is a lot of settings here, too many to talk about them all. This section is where your privacy, security, notifications, and ads settings are. Via settings, you can manage things on your account,, such as your Stories and who can see them and reply. 

You can also restrict individual accounts (if you have trolls) from commenting and hide comments with certain words.

Privacy

On Instagram, you can follow people and they can follow you — you don’t mutually connect like on Facebook. Like Twitter, you can follow someone even if they do not follow you and vice versa.

Users can even put their accounts on private, so they can choose who sees their content. This setting makes it popular with teenagers who often have a private account separate from family.

A business account should be public and all the content public, or why bother!

Instagram Story Highlights

Instagram Stories can be saved and featured past their 24-hour limit on a profile, in the small circles under an Instagram bio. Think of it as an extension of your bio and an opportunity to showcase your best stories and products, services, promotions. Save stories that have performed exceptionally well will give your brand a great impression to anyone visiting your profile.

How Instagram works

There are multiple functions to create and consume content on Instagram, so here is how it works.

Home Feed

The Instagram feed is where you see content posted from the accounts you follow. This feature is available from the toolbar with the home icon. Users can scroll through content from profiles they follow, like or comment on content, and also see content users they follow have engaged with. The algorithm decides what content is shown and is relevant based on your activity. Refresh the feed to show different content.

Explore

Explore page real-time content curation. Appearing on the same page as the search function, content a person sees is chosen based on their interaction and interests. When users engage, you are more likely to show up on their follower’s explore page.

Instagram Stories

Separate from regular Feed, coming in a “slideshow” format. Stories appear in a small area above the Feed. Stories disappear after 24 hours but can be saved to your profile, as mentioned above.

Viewable on your profile if someone clicks on your profile photo or in the Feed over followers. You can use Hashtags and geotagging (location) to increase your audience potential.

Many more extensive profiles often post numerous a day, and they are usually less polished than a post. Often spur of the moment or behind-the-scenes.

Instagram Reels

There is a new tab on the toolbar called Reels. Reels are multi-cut videos that are essentially Instagram’s answer to TikTok. Fifteen seconds long, users create Reels from the Instagram app camera. There is a catalogue of music, sound effects and user-generated Reels media available to create a video.

Brands can use Reels to create engaging content.

“Social media marketing is particularly powerful in supporting new product launches.” (Virtanen, Björk, & Sjöström, 2017)

Instagram Shopping

Instagram allows business profiles to create an online store on Instagram. Shopping now has its tab on the toolbar, and users can view an individual brand’s shop from a button on their profile.

Via the Shop tab on the Explore page, users can search for products or see products from brands they already interact with on Instagram. One hundred thirty million Instagram users tap on shopping posts every month.

Businesses can tag products in posts, Stories, and on IGTV. Then, by turning on Auto-highlighting in settings, all posts with product tags are saved to your profile’s Stories Highlights, so they are viewable on your face.

IGTV

IGTV is a long-form, vertical video format. 

IGTV allows Instagram users to create channels to upload videos between 15 seconds and 10 minutes long. There is a standalone app, but users can also find IGTV content on Instagram through previews in Feed, the IGTV channel in Explore, and creators’ profiles.

Instagram Strategy

Now we know about some of the features of Instagram. It is time to think about your business strategy to harness some of this platform’s power.

Define Your Goals and Your Audience

Think about what you are trying to achieve on Instagram. It is likely to be one or more of the goals below.

• Create an online presence for your business or brands.
• Increase brand awareness.
• Get new leads.
• Establish your brand as an industry leader.
• Sell products directly from the app.

Define your target market to help you create content that this audience would be interested in.

Best Time to Post and How Often?

Try to post when your audience is most active. The best time to post is when followers are on Instagram, between 8:00 am and 9:00 am (when people are getting ready for work etc.), or midday until 2 pm.

Sunday is the worst day to post content, and Monday and Thursday the best days. Schedule your posts to go live during these periods with tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social.

Post consistently to stay in the Feed of followers regularly, but do not over-post. One to two posts per day maximum, so you do not overwhelm and annoy followers.

If all they see is your brand on their news feed, they might unfollow you.

“The most efficient practice in generating followers for a company’s Instagram account is following other users — in this case, potential customers. This action-reaction pattern can be called “follow for follow”, describing the practice of following to be followed back.” (Virtanen, Björk, & Sjöström, 2017)

Engage with People and Content

If you want engagement on Instagram, you must engage yourself,, how the algorithm works on many social media networks.

Respond to comments on your content. It also pays to seek out popular accounts in your industry, follow them, and like and comment on their posts.

Virtanen, Björk, and Sjöström (2017) found a positive relationship between following other accounts and receiving likes on your content. It works as a bit of giving and take.

After you follow an account and interact with their content, you naturally draw attention to your account. That user then receives a notification when you engage, prompting them to check out your account and start following you.

If somebody tags you in their Story or post, make sure to give them a thumbs up or respond. Better yet, reshare their Story to your own.

Use Stories

Stories are a vital part of an Instagram marketing strategy. Business post a third of the most-viewed Stories on Instagram. Therefore, it does not matter if you are a friend or brand — if you post interesting content, people engage.

Have a message in mind with your stories; try not to post meaningless random content unless you want that associated with your brand.

Experiment with different types of content to see what engages their audience best. Types of content available for stores are:

• photos
• short video
• rewind video
• live video
• boomerangs (images that play on a loop)

Use tools like Canva and InVideo to edit images and videos to make them branded and stand out. Other functions include tagging other accounts, adding a location GIF, music, poll, a countdown sticker to a product launch or special event, and let people ask questions.

Use Influencers for Wider Reach

A popular marketing tactic on Instagram is to use the fame of a celebrity or well-known public figure to promote your brand. This benefits a brand by exposure to the large audience of the influencer.

CivicScience found nearly half of daily Instagram users made a purchase based on an influencer recommendation. Followers trust the advice of influencers.

The influencer’s audience must be relevant to your brand. Otherwise, the audience is useless if they are not interested in your product or service.

A common influencer tactic is an Instagram takeover, where an influencer temporarily takes over the account to create and share content and engage will followers.

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Content Tips for Posts

To upload content to Instagram, you must use the mobile app. A post on the Instagram feed can be a single photo, multiple photos, or a video. This section will discuss those individually, along with types of posts.

To make your content easier to find, add a geotag. Geotagging is adding a location, which gives users another way to find your content, leading to higher engagement.

Try and make the look of your content consistent across your posts; this will make your content more recognisable to followers quickly scrolling through their feed.

Brands should create content to showcase their brand by educating or entertain their audience.

Content Ideas

Stuck for ideas of what to post content about? You cannot go wrong using one of these approaches for a post idea that should engage your audience.

• Behind-the-Scenes posts give a snapshot of your workday — your office, storefront, or manufacturing process, for example, providing followers with a glimpse into the business.
• Relationship Posts show the people you deal with and can be shown off through photos of you out for coffee at a meeting, for example. People love humanised content, and it is easy to relate to. You cannot go wrong with smiling faces!
• Educational/Instructional Posts teach the audience how to do or make something or explores a topic. If it is in your expertise, this will be engaging and build credibility.
• Product teasers allow you to talk about your product and increase excitement in a less obvious way. Do not try too hard to sell that will turn away followers.
• Motivational posts work well on Instagram. Overlays a simple visual/photo with an uplifting quote. The caption can tell a story about the quote. Reinforce your brand values.

Using User-generated content —Reposting the content that your audience shares your brand is a great way to regularly post, without always creating the content yourself.

One way to source user-generated content is by holding a competition that uses a branded hashtag. Users create content about brand, using your unique hashtag. You can also tag the users who created the content you share, which helps build a closer relationship with your audience through a close-knit community.

Photo or Video?

Instagram users can share two types of content: photo and video.

Photos

Instagram was created for photos, and there is a lot you can do.

Firstly, leaving negative (empty) space around the image’s subject will draw attention to the desired focus. Try to shoot photos from a different perspective to give them personality and use natural light when possible. Always keep your content on-brand, no matter how random or cool you think something is personally.

No amount of editing can fix photos if they have lousy composition or lighting.

Users can edit photos from within the app, but all the world editing will not fix bad images. Instagram allows you to edit and adjust the brightness, contrast, warmth, saturation, highlights, shadows, vignette, tilt-shift and sharpness.

Instagram also has up to 23 filters that change the look and feel of images in an instant. However, be careful not to over-edit photos. It starts to look a bit of plastic when audiences want authenticity.

The recommendation for image size is 1080 x 1080px for square image and 1080 x 566px for landscape.

Videos

Although photos are the most popular form of content, there is also a lot of video content on Instagram. Videos must be less than a minute in length, but you can use ITV to go longer.

Users can trim videos within the Instagram app. Still, it pays to use a video editor such as Splice that allows you to cut together multiple clips and add transitions, titles, and music.

Show some personality in your videos and showcase your brand’s benefits to your target audience.

Go live

Share content with your audience in real-time by broadcasting live video, allowing you to connect with fans personally.

Live video ideas include:

• Collaborate with an industry expert or influencer using the “Add a Guest” option to go live together.
• Offer a live behind-the-scenes look at an event.
• Share a tutorial.
• Host a Q&A.
• Talk to a client or customer.

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Writing your post caption/copy

Try to post entertaining and engaging captions. Be witty, or funny, or intelligent; it all depends on your brand and your audience. What will resonate with them?

Posts can have up to 2,200 characters long, which is quite considerable compared to 1200 on LinkedIn or 280 on Twitter.

Therefore, posts can range from one sentence to detailed storytelling.

Using bullet points or emojis in the same way as bullet points can make the text easier to consume. Helpful, as people tend to scan captions rather than read them thoroughly.

Try to get all the essential information into those first two lines as users must click to read the rest. You need to hook them.

Hashtags

Hashtags are keywords/phrases spelled without spaces, prefaced with a Hash (#) sign. Using hashtags will increase your visibility and discoverability, and hashtags aggregate posts from various users with public profiles into a single feed.

Hashtags should be relevant to your audience and specific to your niche.

You can use up to 30 hashtags in an Instagram post. But probably do not want to do that. Hashtags should be natural in your caption. Aim to use two to nine hashtags per post.

Avoid making your captions hard to read and looking spammy.

Create a personalised branded hashtag to interact with your audience with user-generated content and make content featuring your brand easier to find by clicking on that hashtag.

It helps you quickly find user images of your brand that you might want to share. User content always seems authentic to help add credibility.

Instagram Ads

Using ads helps businesses get their content in front of a larger audience of people who fit their target market but do not follow the page. Use content for ads that will be engaging and appealing to your target audience. Do not be pushy with sales tactics in your ads.

Instagram ads are created through Facebook’s Business Suite (Facebook owns Instagram). To post to Instagram, under placements, select Instagram.

You can turn existing posts into sponsored ads, called boosting content, or create a new ad.

Ad types include:

• Single Image
• Video Ads
• Story Ads
• Carousel/Dynamic Ads
• Stories Canvas

Instagram ads can target users based on characteristics such as:

• Location
• Demographics
• Interests
• Behaviours

Custom audiences from databases of existing relationships can be uploaded and use to create lookalike audiences. These lookalike audiences are chosen based on similarities they have with people on your database — for example, similar behaviour and interests.

When setting up your ads, they need an objective. This objective could be:

• Brand Awareness
• Reach
• Traffic
• App Installs
• Engagement
• Video Views
• Conversions

Ads are set up with a start and finish date and a lifetime budget, meaning you can control how much you spend on ads.

To maximize ad delivery, Instagram recommends using images that are at 600 x 600px for square format ads, 600 x 315px for landscape ads, and 600 x 750px for vertical ads.

Instagram Analytics

You can analyse how your efforts on Instagram are working through Insights. Staying on top of analytics allows you to optimise and hopefully improve your Instagram performance. Learn what works and what is not.

Key metrics to keep an eye on follower are impressions, follower growth rate, average engagement rate (likes and comments), and your URL click-through rate.

A better understanding of your audience, such as their demographics like age, gender, location, anmost active times,ctive; gives you objective knowledge of tailoring content to their preference.

Facebook’s Ad Manager also allows you to check how your advertising is doing, which will improve your content and audience targeting.

Trial and error will help you fine-tune. If an audience is not responding as much as you would like, tweak it and the content — change the copy or use a different image/video.

Check out what your competitors are posting with a competitive analysis. Using the search function, use keywords related to your industry to find similar accounts. Stalking other users will give you great ideas on what type of content to create yourself.

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Summary

And there you have it — a guide to marketing on Instagram in 2021.

The article first explored the benefits of using Instagram to market a business, set up a business account, and optimise it.

We then learnt how the platform works and the different content types that can be shared on the platform.

Finally, I discussed strategies that businesses can use on Instagram to get the most out of the platform, such as tips about ideas for content, using paid ads on the platform and understanding the analytics.

Thanks for reading.

I hope you enjoyed the content.

Dan

This content was originally posted on the BYB Marketing Blog

12 Ways to Use Direct Marketing

Mass marketing is inefficient and expensive. Would it not be great if you could cut out the middleman and advertise to customers direct? The good news is, you can!

Direct marketing uses advertising tactics such as email marketing, mail drops and paid ads online to reach customers with targeted marketing messages.

This article explores direct marketing, explaining how it works and the different direct marketing tactics that businesses can use to reach customers.

“Retailers use direct marketing as one marketing communication tool in their overall communication portfolio to reach existing customers. (Uematsu, & Mishra, 2011)

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What is direct marketing?

There are two main advertising variants to a marketing strategy — mass marketing and direct marketing.

Mass marketing uses mass media such as television, radio, and newspapers to broadcast messages to random publics.

Direct Marketing is advertising that seeks to achieve a specific action from a selected target audience of the most likely buyers.

The use of direct marketing has grown considerably in the digital era, as the cost of collecting and storing customer data has reduced. An increase in distribution channels’ available online provides direct access to the customer.

As the name implies, communication and/or distribution is direct with the consumer, bypassing a third party such as the mass media.

 Types of direct marketing include:

• Email marketing
• Direct mail
• Fliers
• Brochures
• Couponing
• Catalogue distribution
• Postcards
• Promotional letters
• Loyalty cards
• Insert media
• Couponing
• Door-to-door sales
• Telemarketing phone calls
• Text messaging
• Messenger
• Websites
• Social media
• Targeted online ads

There is some disagreement about whether some forms of promotion are direct marketing.

Some marketers consider television infomercials, newspapers and magazine advertisements, and outdoor advertising direct marketing. But only if it has a direct response aspect, such as a toll-free number.

However, these marketing methods are not as targeted as most direct marketing forms, so I do not include them here.

Most of these direct marketing methods are explained later in the document.

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The objectives of direct marketing

Direct marketing campaigns aim to persuade consumers to action, providing tangible and measurable results, such as purchases, signups, or requests for more information.

While other advertising methods such as content marketing aims to educate prospects rather than sell, direct marketing intends to encourage a specific action.

Some of the reasons for using direct marketing are:

• Improve sales of specific products
• Clear discontinued stock
• Increase customer retention and loyalty
• Follow up on promotional offers.

A call to action

Direct marketing commonly uses incentive-based information where it offers consumers a benefit to act on. Called a call to action (CTA), they depend on your industry and the target consumers.

Examples of CTAs are:

• Click the link
• Visit our website or store
• Call us to get more info on our products or services
• Subscribe with your email address
• Purchase here
• Register your interest
• Limited-time coupon
• Sign up now
• Invitation-only event
• Discounted membership
• Make a booking

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The benefits of using direct marketing

There are several benefits to businesses using direct marketing. I will talk about some of those now.

Marketing is measurable

The first significant benefit of direct marketing is clearly measurable results.

Direct marketing is more straightforward to measure than many other types of advertising. With a process called data mining, firms can use analytics to improve their results.

Online, firms use pixels to measure campaign results, such as identifying who has clicked on an advert or used a unique discount code.

Physical mail drops are harder to measure. Still, any noticeable increases in sales of items over the campaigns can be attributed to the advertising. 

The most important deliverable is whether there is an overall return on investment for the campaign.

As well as measuring the effectiveness of your marketing, you can test new markets and trial new products or services.

“Successful direct marketing initiatives require firms to predict the behaviour of specific individuals.” (Allenby, Leone & Jen, 1999)

Marketing becomes optimised

By monitoring and analysing their processes, firms can improve future campaigns’ success by tweaking their strategy.

Firms can use small direct marketing campaigns to test marketing effectiveness, such as test A / B tests. They can try different variants of the ad's components, such as subject title, images, call to actions, or even when they send out a campaign.

New products can even be tested on small market segments before mass marketing to evaluate customers desire for those products and services.

“Instead of promoting to customers indiscriminatively, direct marketing studies customers’ characteristics and needs, and selects certain customers as the target for promotion.” (Ling & Li, 1998)

Marketing is targeted

Indirect marketing uses marketing techniques broadcasted to random audiences. Direct marketing, on the other hand, focuses on targeted lists of prospective customers.

Marketing targets the most likely prospects, which improves the response rate. For example, for a supermarket sending out the weekly specials, this will be location-based. It makes sense to focus marketing efforts on the people most likely to give results, right?

Direct marketing becomes more profitable the more targeted it becomes. You do not want to waste money marketing to people who will not be customers. Your marketing becomes junk mail or spam to these people.

To create targeted audiences requires database segmentation. Segmentation is the process of dividing the customer base into small groups with some common characteristics. 

People are grouped based on their criteria such as age, income, location, gender, occupation, interests and buying patterns.

Marketing is personalised

Because firms target marketing to a specific audience, marketing is also personalised to those customer segment’s needs.

Firms use information about their audience, such as age, income, and consumer behaviour, to create tailored marketing content. We want the audience to react, so firms must customise their message to increases their chances of resonating with the specific audience.

High conversion rate

Because direct marketing usually involves research to identify and focus on the customers most likely to purchase, it has a higher conversion rate than other marketing forms.

Furthermore, email marketing tactics are only contacting previous customers or people who have opted to receive advertising.

The audience already has a real interest in the firm and is more likely to convert again.

Direct marketing strategies allow producers to receive a better price by selling products directly to consumers (Uematsu & Mishra, 2011)

Low-cost

Direct marketing can be a small fraction of mass marketing cost because it eliminates the need for a middleman, such as an advertising agency. Moreover, because the audience chosen for a campaign is small and targeted, this also reduces the cost. Direct marketing can be done on a tight budget and still achieve results.

Enhanced customer loyalty

Direct mail is an excellent tool for building and maintaining relationships with customers and prospects because it is personalised.

Firms can combine direct marketing with customer loyalty tactics to increase the bond further. Examples of loyalty strategies include special discount offers, sending birthday messages and invites to ‘exclusive’ sales events.

Direct mail can be successful in re-establishing relationships with former customers who have not consumed it for a while.

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Direct marketing strategy

As a marketing strategy, firms such as banks, insurance companies, and the retail industry increasingly use direct marketing. It can be a very aggressive form of marketing, so firms must carefully plan and implement it.

As the target audience should be people who have expressed interest or are likely to be interested in what you have to say, you need to develop contact lists. Having a robust database of customers and potential customers is key to the success of direct marketing.

“In direct marketing, this knowledge is a description of likely buyers or responders, and is useful in obtaining higher profit than mass marketing.” (Ling & Li, 1998)

It is vital to maintain an organised database and customer records. Data mining can provide an effective tool for direct marketing, discovering useful information about customers to be used in campaigns.

Campaigns are personalised to these audiences to capture their attention with relevant offers.

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Direct marketing methods

There are several marketing methods firms can use to reach their customers. Many were named above. This section will outline some of the popular forms.

Loyalty cards

It entails giving loyal customers membership cards. Customers can then use these cards to access price discounts, free trials, and other offers. Combine your direct marketing methods with your loyalty program.

“Retailer direct marketing typically includes coupons or promotions bundled together with an advertising message.” (Lund & Marinova, 2014)

Couponing

The use of discounts through advertising media is called couponing, which can be an excellent way to elicit a response from targeted customers. Firms can send coupons by mail for customers to take in-store to receive a discount or a digital version.

Coupons are downloaded and printed or shown on the customer’s mobile phone. Firms can distribute digital coupons via company websites, social media, texts, or email.

Insert media

Delivering advertising inserted into shared media is called insert media. Often a one-page ad is inserted into other physical communication media, such as catalogues, newspapers, or magazines.

For this strategy to work effectively, it needs to be targeting the right audience. For example, an automotive store would not want their insert media inside women’s gossip magazines. The target audience should align.

Direct mail

Direct mail uses the mailbox of potential customers to deliver advertising materials. Campaigns often focus on people in a specific geographic area or customers on a marketing list.

There are several different types of direct mail. Types of direct mail are circulars, leaflets, or flyers distributed to everyone in the advertiser area.

This method can work well for local businesses whose products or services appeal to a broad audience. It is common with financial services, consumer goods and travel and tourism industries.

Catalogues, on the other hand, are usually only sent to consumers with a previous interest.

As well as letterbox drops could be handouts to people in the city or shopping malls. Postcards and envelope mailers also standard direct mail methods.

Telemarketing

Contacting potential customers over the phone is called telemarketing. Most consumers are not very appreciative of this approach, and in the age of digital marketing, it has become outdated. Telemarketing should focus on people with a higher probability of getting converted into actual sales to be effective,

Telemarketing can be a successful method for following up on other direct marketing campaigns. Leads are more qualified, and the call is not cold.

Door-to-Door

One of the more well-known and traditional direct selling methods, door-to-door, has a salesperson go out and knock on the door of homes. It can be a very laborious and frustrating job, with people not home or answering the door rudely when they see the salesperson.

It is common for real estate salespeople to find a property to list to satisfy buyers looking in a particular geographic area. Telecommunications and utility companies often employ a salesforce to use this method as one-on-one communication can be highly persuasive.

Door hangers are another form of door-to-door, which is a more passive form. Salespeople hang fliers over the door, and no actual interaction takes place.

Mobile marketing

Sending promotional material to users via their mobile devices is mobile marketing. It is a very low-cost way to reach the target audience. A targeted method as firms creates the database with customers and other interested people.

Firms send messages via text, including information about sales, links to website specials, appointments or information about the order status.

Messenger marketing

Creating a chatbot for websites or social media messaging apps helps brands automate answering customer questions with relevant answers. Commonly chatbots are designed to reach out to people browsing the page automatically and can even collect orders.

Email marketing

As one of the most widely used direct-marketing methods, email marketing is a simple, cost-effective, and measurable way of reaching customers.

Email marketing is easy and inexpensive to design, test, and send an email message. Businesses use content marketing to provide useful information to consumers to encourage them to join the mailing list.

Firms send emails regularly to generate new customers or give special offers to existing customers.

Online Ads

Pay per click (PPC) ads can be a beneficial form of direct marketing. There are three main types of PPC ads.

• Display Ads appear on the Web next to similar content direct mail.
• Search engines show ads next to organic (non-paid) search results based on search terms.
• Social media ads also use a PPC format; the users see the ads based on the advertiser's characteristics.

Social Media

Direct marketing on social media creates content for platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, communicating directly to which customers can respond.

Much of the content created for social media is about building trust and showcasing the brand rather than selling.

Only around 1 or 2 posts out of every ten on social media should be sales focused.

Website

Having a website is an integral part of direct marketing online. Many websites are also online store, so firms use many other marketing methods in conjunction with their website to increase their traffic. These methods include SEO, PPC ads, Blogging, and lead magnets.

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Summary

In sum, the article has explored direct marketing as an advertising tool for businesses. 

I have discussed some of the benefits of using direct marketing, such as being measurable and targeted.

I define twelve direct marketing methods to give tips on integrating direct marketing into your own marketing strategy. Not every direct marketing method will suit every business. 

Remember, you need to analyse your situation, look at any data, and rationally decide which approaches will most effectively communicate with your target customers.

Thank you for reading.

I hope you enjoyed the content.

Dan

This article was originally posted on the BYB Marketing Blog

B2B vs B2C Marketing: 9 Key Differences

Marketing influences customer decision-making.

A person’s decision-making process for purchasing a car, holiday or a new Ice Cream brand will differ from how they make a business decision such as what printer to buy.

Therefore, the way businesses market consumer or business products or services is quite different.

This article explores these differences between B2B and B2C marketing.

Defining B2B and B2C Marketing

Before exploring the differences between B2B and B2C marketing, we must first define marketing.

According to Rėklaitis & Pilelienė (2019) marketing comprises of six promotional mix elements: advertising, public relations (publicity), sales promotions, personal selling, digital marketing, and direct marketing; managed from an integrated marketing approach.

B2B stands for ‘Business to Business’, and B2C for ‘Business to Consumer’.

Therefore, they differ primarily in terms of the customer and audience. B2B sell products and services directly to other businesses and B2C sell products and services to consumers for personal use.

Examples of B2B are businesses selling the raw product to manufacturers such as timber or steel, Accountants’ customers are typically other businesses, or a company offering website building or digital marketing.

Examples of B2C businesses are the local corner store/convenience store, a website where you can buy fitness and health supplements or any store in the local shopping centre/mall.
“…Seeking to successfully plan and implement marketing communication strategies, it is important to understand the differences of business-to-consumer vs. business-to-business communication processes.” (Rėklaitis & Pilelienė, 2019)

There is some overlap between the two, and many of the practices and processes stay the same. However, some differences separate them.

Differences between B2B and B2C Marketing

In B2B, marketing communications are far more professional, rational, and less emotive than B2C.

B2B is about building relationships and educating prospects; where B2C marketing uses enjoyable content and focuses on quick solutions to trigger an emotional response to a need, interest, or challenges of people in their everyday lives.

Rėklaitis & Pilelienė (2019) identify numerous differences between B2B and B2C markets.

I have identified nine of the most significant differences between marketing for B2B and B2C, which are:

• The decision-maker
• The decision-making and sales process
• The motivation
• Customer relationship
• Marketing strategy
• Target audience
• Communication tools
• Language
• Purchase value and complexity

The following chapters will discuss these differences individually.

The decision-maker

Multiple staff can influence the decisions in organisations, whereas B2C often involves one decision-maker.

“In B2C, there is always a particular person who is making a decision to pur­chase an item. Considering B2B sales, in most cases, will be more than one person to decide; therefore, knowing the decision-makers and decision-making process in B2B is very important.” Rėklaitis & Pilelienė (2019)

B2B — Multiple decision-makers or influences

We are not marketing to one just one person in B2B. Organisational processes confine purchases, and there is a chain of command to deal with in B2B, with owners, managers or other decision-makers purchasing on behalf of their organisation.

The needs of the company and/or the employees drive decisions. A worker in a particular factory area might report that they need new equipment, but a manager might decide what to purchase.

Work out who the right person is to target with marketing or have a conversation with is, as marketing must reach this small group of individuals within the business, which can be easier said than done.

B2C — Decision-maker is often the customer

The decision-maker for B2C is often the customer or another family member. The decision is based on what benefits it brings to them personally or to their family member. Communication to consumers should focus on the problem you solve or help your brand provides.

Marketing can reach any potential consumer for a product in a household, even if they are not necessarily the purchaser.

Reach the household decision-maker for significant items such as a new vehicle. For smaller items such as cereal for the household or cleaning products, the kids or wife could be the decision-maker or consumer, and the husband/father the customer that makes the purchase.

The decision-making and sales process

The decision-making and sales process for B2B is usually highly planned, process-driven and logical, where a B2C is often more emotional than rational.

“…Based on the rationality of B2B customers and the emotionality in B2C markets, the messages of marketing communications also have to emphasise different aspects of an offering: starting with general product characteristics in B2B market and ending with pursued delight and impalpability in B2C situations.” (Rėklaitis & Pilelienė, 2019)

 

B2B — Slow decision-making process, highly planned and logical

The purchasing process for B2B focuses on the logic of the product/service, its features, and financial incentives. Rationality drives choices, which are less pleasure-driven than B2C, with little personal emotion involved.

B2B customers expect the business to look after them. Sales take a consultative approach, focusing on customer service before a transaction occurs, maintaining open communication.

Provide custom solutions to customers to best fit their needs, as they are often investigating alternative solutions from competi­tors

B2B customers spend longer researching before purchasing than B2C.

The length of sales cycles has increased as the more significant number of decision‐makers in the B2B buying process has increased. The buyer decision process illustrated in the AIDA model.

 

Customer progress in the Buyer Decision Process can be tracked through CRM, to understand their needs best and offer the best solution.

“B2B sector there are planned activities involved in a sales process: a purchaser has to follow the budget frames and time limitations.” (Rėklaitis & Pilelienė, 2019)

B2C — Decisions more emotional than rational

Decisions made by B2C customers are often more emotional, impulsive, less rational and vary in length and importance. Advertising often influences these decisions and customers can decide on a purchase instantly.

The purchase process, therefore, should be as easy and as convenient as possible.

This shortened research, decision and sales process means social proof on social media or reviews has more influence on decision-making than B2B.

Often, when a consumer realises they have a need, they already know what kind of solution (product or service) they need. They have seen the advertising, or there is a brand they trust above others.

The Motivation

Business purchasing decisions are typically motivated by business needs, in contrast to consumer decisions often motivated by individual desire.

B2B — Improve business performance

The goal of improving their business its profitability is a significant motivation for B2B customers. These customers seek efficiency and/or expertise, thinking about the impact of their business decisions. Decisions are well thought out, with little influence of emotions.

Emotion is in B2B does exist, just not at the same level. You are still selling to human beings with fears, needs, and wants, and marketers should try to appeal to this. Tie emotion appeal back to improving their business performance and a return on investment.

“B2C marketing communication campaign in most cases will be based on capturing the customer’s attention immediately. Consumers’ decision will be more emotional.” (Rėklaitis & Pilelienė, 2019)

B2C — Fulfilling consumer desire

The motivation for B2C customers is the desire to improve their lives in a particular way.

They could be seeking deals, entertainment, or pleasure. Purchasing a new shirt, or a holiday probably will not have the same decision-making process than choosing an accountant for their business.

Consumers do not have to think on behalf of an organisation, although they might decide for their family. Often instant gratification is the primary motivating factor.

Customer Relationships

B2B marketing focuses on forming long-term personal relationships with its target customers, whereas B2C marketing focuses on creating short-term value and efficiency.

B2B — Build personal relationships

Repeat and referral business is critical is advertising is not as effective as it is for B2C, instead of forming and developing personal relationships drives B2B sales and marketing goals.

“Generally speaking, building trust between seller and buyer will be the main prerequisite for a successful (B2B) deal.” (Rėklaitis & Pilelienė, 2019)

Having conversations with people you know and meeting new people can be very successful for generating leads (potential customers; a reason why networking is an excellent tool for B2B businesses.

More nurturing of leads is required than B2C, paying close attention to customer needs. Good communication is needed and other customer service aspects of creating positive (or negative) associations with your brand by your practices helping separate you from competitors.

“B2B purchasing is more likely to involve more intense direct relationships and richness of pre-purchase information.” (Jussila, Kärkkäinen, & Aramo-Immonen, 2014)

 

B2C — Transactional relationship

The aim of B2C marketing is drive as many sales as possible in an efficient manner. The effort spent getting to know the customer is far less than B2B, as relationships are more short-term and transactional.

Because of the larger markets and customer potential, instead of focusing on building close relationships with customers, the emphasis is on creating value and process efficiency.

The investment into you from B2C customers is unlikely not as deep as your investment in them. Do not bombard them with too much content outside their buying cycle. Try to make the customer experience with your website or other contact points, a positive experience to encourage their loyalty.

Focus on selling the product, one way of doing this is by using a call to action and offer incentives.

Marketing strategy

The focus of B2B marketing strategy is on lead generation through relationship building. For B2C, the emphasis is instead on branding to create an identity that attracts customers.

B2B — Lead generation

Lead generation is a priority of B2B businesses. B2B purchasers rely on personal sales relatively more than advertising as a source of product information. Salespeople are integral marketing tools.

Because decision-making often involves a group of people, the salesperson can talk with and negotiate with all the relevant parties at once.

Being consistent in the presentation of information, and a good reputation for delivering on promises goes a long way to drive repeat business and referrals.

Networking with other businesspeople increases your chances of bumping into past clients and acquaintances, where a conversation and introduction be your next warm sales lead. You already have built credibility through the association and introduction.

B2C — Branding

Branding is a priority for B2C marketing. Marketing should put the brand front and centre to create a lasting memory. When it comes time for customers to make a purchase, you automatically want them to think of your brand.

Keep your brand in front of target consumers with email marketing and remarketing on Google. Invest in SEO or Google Ads, and identify keywords that consumers are likely to search for online when looking for products/services you offer, to rank for those keywords and improve your online search result.

Encourage happy customers to leave positive reviews. Offer them a discount on their next purchase if they leave a review, which will help create social proof for consumers in their decision-making process.

Target Audience

B2B marketing targets the multiple decision-makers of a business, where B2C is targeted directly to end-users.

B2B — Multiple decision-makers/managers

In B2B marketing, it is essential to understand our target audience’s characteristics: businesses’ decision-makers. They may not be the product or service user but make decisions on behalf of staff who do.

“The larger number of decision-makers/influencers in B2B means that B2B marketers must consider different media and different messages for each person involved.” (Habibi, Hamilton, Valos, & Callaghan, 2015)

Salespeople need to know who to have a conversation with — the chain of command.

With digital marketing, the more we understand these people’s demographic and behaviours, the better we can target them with smart digital advertising. It is easy to compile and then analyse data about customers through CRM.

B2C — End users

Products or services are marketed directly to end-users in a B2C market. Because of this, consumers must recognise the brand and the value you provide. Consumer markets are usually much more extensive, with much more diverse customer demographics.

Create influential advertisements for mass media that give the consumer the desire for your products or services. Lead generation through social media is another effective way to reach consumers. Focus on after-sales activities rather than pre-sale to enhance the customer’s chances of retaining your brand’s favourable opinion.

Communication tools

B2B communication uses integration between digital tools and salespeople, whereas B2C commonly uses mass media such as TV or Facebook to reach audiences.

“B2C companies with limited budgets often choose to rely on two or even fewer media channels, thus amplifying the risk of wasting time and resources on activities that would not lead to pursued goals and objectives. As opposed, B2B companies often use several channels for communication with their targets.” (Rėklaitis & Pilelienė, 2019)

 

B2B — Integration between digital tools and salespeople

Using diverse social media and other digital tools enhances a firm’s ability to communicate a large amount of information. Social media can perform some of the functions previously carried out by salespeople, by sharing educational information about products or services, such as how you save time, money, and resources.

However, salespeople are still essential to B2B marketing to address different decision-makers’ emotional needs.

Social media’s coordination between the sales department, operations, and marketing should ensure consistency. Content marketing through social media helps business satisfy the rational needs of the multiple decision‐makers involved in a company. Ensure consistent messages to keep a consistent brand image over time, in different contexts.

The effectiveness of social media platforms for B2C, and B2B varies. Many B2C firms have experienced great success acquired customers through Facebook or Instagram, where LinkedIn generates the most leads for B2B.

“B2B companies place a higher value on educational formats such as blogging and webinars; consumer businesses are slightly more willing to experiment with advanced digital formats…” (Habibi, Hamilton, Valos, & Callaghan, 2015)

 

B2C — Mass media

Facebook is a powerhouse in B2C marketing, and Instagram and Pinterest are also popular platforms for B2C. A robust visual component can help create an emotional response.

B2C does not usually require a sales team (apart from retail). Instead, firms should choose the most relevant marketing channels to communicate with their target audience.

Mass marketing tools such as product placements or television advertising is far more effective for B2C than B2B.

Language

B2B marketing and sales should use industry terminology to enhance professionalism and credibility, but B2C communication should be simple, in customers’ voice and emotive.

B2B — Speak the lingo

Marketing in B2B should be professional; you could lose credibility with language that is too informal.

B2B customers need a salesperson or an expert in their industry terminology and knowledgeable about their business processes. They need a constructive conversation with knowledge provided about exactly what they are purchasing. Marketers must speak their language and provide detailed content.

“B2B marketers must ensure that social media messages for consumer products, which often are informal, casual and humorous, do not send a signal that the company is not technically competent.” (Habibi, Hamilton, Valos, & Callaghan, 2015).

B2C — Use emotional triggers

Marketing to consumers should use straightforward language, in the customer’s voice, so it is relatable. It should also aim to evoke the emotions of the audience to create a desire.

Get right to the point with marketing and point out the benefits clearly, so it is easy to understand. The more straightforward your message is, the better. Do not use industry jargon.

It is also okay to be informal and humorous.

Consumers often purchase with the hearts over their minds and will go with their gut. Emotion often influences this ‘gut’ feeling.

We aim to entertain the audience rather than strictly educating them. B2C customers are highly motivated by personal gratification, so marketing that tells an uplifting story about someone who benefited from consuming your brand provides excellent marketing content.

“B2B products or services are often more complex than consumer products and services. Greater product complexity means that B2B purchasers tend to rely on more information.” (Habibi, Hamilton, Valos, & Callaghan, 2015)

Purchase value and complexity

The B2B the purchasing process is more complicated than B2C, taking more consideration from decision-makers, as purchases are usually of higher cost and importance.

B2B — High value and complexity

Because of the higher-order values and longer sales cycles of B2B, the potential risk is heightened compared to B2C.

Purchases can become quite complicated, with multiple influences on decisions. Decisions are typically long-term investments; decisions can be a complicated process with pressure to get decisions right. B2B clients often need to prove a return-on-investment for their purchase.

B2B marketers should use social media to provide informational and valuable content to reduce risk perception.

B2C — low value and complexity

Purchase values in B2C can vary greatly. Low-cost consumables from the supermarket, for example, are low cost and low risk. Do not have to educate purchasers but instead entice them.

Marketing should aim to create an emotional response — food looks eye-watering tasty, clothing makes a model look more fashionable or a phone that takes better photos to create better memories. A decision is usually not complicated, often made in a split second to fulfil instant gratification motivation.



Thank you for reading.

I hope you enjoyed the content about B2C and B2B Marketing’s differences and learned something new!

In summary, there are different motivations for making business decisions and making personal decisions. Choices on what to purchase for a business is a longer process more logical and rational than the sometimes emotional decision to buy something for ourselves or our families.

Therefore, the way marketing communicates to these two customers groups will be different.

This article was originally posted on the BYB Marketing Blog: https://brandyourselfbetter.com/blog/post/223490/the-differences-between-b2b-and-b2c-marketing