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

How to Improve Your Copywriting

We learn to write from a very young age. 

At school, reading and writing is first skills we learn. It's key to communication and important to everyday life. Social media - reading and writing.  It is something we take for granted.

The ability to write well means you have a skill that will always be in demand. Being able to persuade people through writing means you could probably be a top-selling author for some self-help book; OR, you could be a copywriter. 

This blog explores copywriting, what it is, and how to write better copy for promotional materials.

“Copywriting is the optimum use of language to promote or persuade.” (Albrighton, 2013)

Using Digital Marketing to Reach Your Customers

The internet is a massive part of our lives. We use the internet for all sorts of things — to socialise, learn, or entertain us. It is where many of us spend a lot of our time. 

Because we are spending so much time online, the internet has become a powerful tool to communicate with customers and potential customers. 

Promoting our business on the internet is digital marketing, and companies have so many opportunities to put their brands out there to attract customers. 

Where do we start? 

Read on to find out more.

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

The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Marketing: 2021 Edition

A business page on Facebook is a valuable tool for any marketer, whether you are a consultant, SME or corporation. 

Ever since Facebook launched in 2004, it has continued to grow inactive users. It is the most popular social media platform across the globe and the second most visited website. 

Literally, billions of people are using Facebook every week. So it’s an excellent opportunity to put your brand in front of your target market and grow an audience with people who could become customers.

However, Facebook is not static. It is always updating the algorithm and including new features for users.

Luckily, I have created this guide to marketing on Facebook in 2021 with up to date information about setting up your account and the tools available for you to use.

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Social media for marketing

Social media networks are online platforms for exchanging information, communication, and connecting to maintain and form relationships.

Social media plays a vital role in modern culture, with one-third of the total time online across the globe spent on social media.

According to Boyd and Ellison (2010), social media can is a “web-based services that allow individuals to

(1) Construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,

(2) Articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and

(3) View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.”

From a marketing point, social media offers several advantages to businesses.

People use social media to express their identity, but they also use it to learn about products, brands, and topics that interest them. Therefore, social media is an excellent opportunity to showcase a brand and learn more about the target market’s preferences and consumer behaviour.

“The Internet environment and its increasing significance started to play a vital role in motivating customers in their decision whether to buy a product or not. The great advantage of social media (apart from others) is the fact that they are available for all sorts of businesses — no matter their size and specialization.” (Copuš, & Čarnogurský, 2017)

Social media is a low-cost marketing tool — it can even cost nothing (besides your time). Access to social media is readily available to any business that wants to set up an account, anytime they want.

Usage level by potential customers is large, meaning it is easy to be noticed by your target audience. There is the ability to go ‘viral’ with content seen by many people for little effort or investment.

The ease of linking content to your website to potentially convert leads into paying customers is another significant benefit.

Social media has become essential for any businesses’ marketing strategy to engage with their target consumers to generate brand awareness and create a loyal following.

“Two-thirds of Facebook users say they visit a local business Facebook Page at least once a week.” (Kawaf, & Istanbulluoglu, 2019)

 

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Why is Facebook so crucial to marketers?

Facebook is a useful tool for marketers wanting to use social media for social selling as part of their broader marketing strategy.

According to Facebook, by 2018, they had over 2 billion monthly active users, along with 60 million business pages.

This high number of active users that makes Facebook such an appealing digital marketing platform.

Another drawcard of Facebook is the ability to facilitate mutual communication and interaction to build relationships with a high number of potential customers.

“Facebook allows companies to connect with many more people and much more often than the companies would be able to approach through phone calls, emails, or meetings.” (Ramsaran-Fowdar, & Fowdar, 2013)

 

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Setting up your Facebook business page

Do not make the mistake of setting up a personal profile for your business! Make a business page, to receive all the benefits such as analytics and paid advertising.

It is a good idea to set up Facebook Business Manager to organise and manage all your Facebook marketing and advertising activities from a central location after you set up your business page.

To set up a business account, log into your personal account and go to facebook.com/pages/create.

Before we get into it, it is essential to say that if you want to be successful on Facebook, you need to know a lot about Facebook and how things work. Facebook continuously updates the platform, so things change. Learn about Facebook and how it operates. Use the help section on the Facebook website and Google any queries.

Complete your Page info

Complete every component of your profile to get the most out of your Facebook business account. Under manage page, edit page info.

Add a username — it can be up to 50 characters long. It makes sense for it to be your business/brand name, consistently named with other social media. Essential to your branding, this will become your personalised URL — e.g., facebook.com/yourbusinessname.

The name you want may already be in use by someone else. If so, create a username as close and relevant as possible to your brand name.

Fill out your ‘About’ section with necessary information such as a brief but descriptive summary of who you are and what value you bring, your contact details and website, operating hours, and price range (if relevant).

Search engines use this information to ensure you use relevant keywords and ensure it is consistent with your other information on the web.

Make sure your profile aligns with your brand’s overall marketing strategy. It should reflect your brand’s unique identity, so people know what your page is about and what you do when visiting it.

Business page template

Customise the look of your Business page through one of their templates. There is a variety available to help businesses showcase content to fit their business needs best, prioritising your business type’s most critical information or content.

To change your template, select the Page Settings tab of your Facebook business profile and then click on templates. Templates available are:

• Services
• Business
• Venues
• Non-profits
• Politician
• Public figures
• Restaurants & Cafes
• Shopping
• Video page
• Standard

Profile images

Your profile picture should be easy for your target audience to recognise — either the company logo for a brand or your headshot if you are a freelancer or consultant.

Make it high-quality and engaging to your visitors. Same with your cover photo — this is an excellent opportunity to capture your target audience’s attention.

It needs to be clear what you do and the value you bring. Facebook allows you to upload a video for your cover also — this can be an opportunity to showcase your business via video.

Currently, profile pictures display at 170 × 170 pixels on desktop, and 128 × 128 on smartphones. 170 x 170 is the recommended size

Cover photos display on desktop at 820 x 312 pixels and smartphones at 640 x 360. Facebook recommends 851 x 315 to work best on both.

Call to action

Make sure you enable your call-to-action button. The call-to-action button has several options such as “Sign Up,” “Send Message,” or “Learn more”, which directs to a destination URL (webpage) of your choice.

A call to action makes it easier for customers to take the desired action, and it can help drive more traffic to your website (if that is where the URL sends them).

Define your audience

An essential component of any marketing strategy is knowing your target audience and planning how best to communicate with those people with the right content.

Knowing this will also help target in paid advertising when you set up your audience. Ads are covered later in this article.

Some of the questions you need to answer are:

• What is the age of your target audience?
• Where do they live?
• What are their occupations?
• What are their interests?
• What are their goals?
• How do they use Facebook?
• When do they use Facebook?
• How often?
• Are they educated?
• Are they Married?
• What language/s do they speak?
• What is their purchasing activity online?

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Messenger

Facebook Messenger is the second most downloaded app after Facebook, with over 1.3 billion people using Facebook Messenger each month.

Many users open their Messenger messages. According to Mobile Monkey, email typically has around a 5–10% open-rates and a 1% clickthrough rate. However, Messenger can have open-rates over 50% and a 20% clickthrough rate.

With so many people with the messenger app installed, they receive a notification instantly to their smartphones. In contrast, a message may sit in an email inbox for several days before someone checks their email and notices it.

If you respond to customers instantly, there is more chance of converting a sale.

To ensure your response time on your Facebook business page is as quick as possible, you can set up a Messenger Bot. After all, most businesses do not have time to answers monitor their messages. You must work and sleep, right?

Messenger bots are a type of Chatbot. Chatbots are a tool with artificial intelligence to simulates human conversations with internet users.

Chatbots communicate with your audience naturally, whether it be to answer a customer’s query or inform them what is going on in the business, such as promoting a new product or service, or upcoming sales.

Bots can be highly-tailored to answer almost anything a customer wants to know about your business — without needing a human being’s time. They can even be programmed to have information about your entire product catalogue to recommend the best solution to their needs.

They are more simple than you probably think to set up — there are multiple tools available to help create your bot. Read this guide from Hootsuite to on how to set up a messenger bot.

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What do I post on Facebook?

Facebook as a marketing tool allows businesses to control the type of content they share when they share it and how often.

But what type of content should your business post? Motivations for people who engage with Facebook pages include socialising, entertainment, self-status seeking and information seeking.

Post content authentic to who you are and your expertise and aim to encourage meaningful conversations.

For example, a real estate agent could post content with tips for sellers when putting their house on the market, and a plumber or handyman could post DIY guides on how to fix common household problems.

The Facebook algorithm prioritises the content people see based on what they usually interact with and popularity of the post.

Think from your target customers’ perspective and what content they would find valuable, informational, thought-provoking, emotional, or entertaining. Creating this type of content will boost your credibility with your audience.

Desist from posting clickbait and too much spammy content.

A good rule of thumb is posting original material 70 percent of the time, share other content relevant to your audience’s interest 20 percent of the time and 10 percent of your content self-promotional or sales orientated.

Do not be limited to one or two types of content and embrace the opportunity to experiment with different content formats to see what works best for engaging your audience.

If you post content using Facebook Business Suite, it also goes on your Instagram account.

Photos & videos

Visual content such as photos, infographics, and video, is more likely to get shared on social media than other content. Including a photo means more of your followers will notice your post as they mindlessly scroll through their feed.

Facebook users are far more likely to engage than with a post with text alone.

It pays to invest a reasonable amount of time and other resources into creating video for your social media. Many people casually scroll and watch videos during downtime at home or work.

According to WordStream, 45% of people watch more than an hour of video on Facebook or YouTube a week.

Some of these people prefer to scroll in silence as to not interrupt people around them. Some studies have indicated that up to 85% of users watch Facebook videos on silent. Therefore, including captions in your videos to videos is a no-brainer.

Research carried out by Facebook found that adding subtitles increases view times by 12% on average.

Use different orientations for creating videos.

Facebook Stories are in Portrait mode; you should shoot some video content in this orientation. Many people watch a video in landscape view. Still, a study from Buffer found that square videos perform best and receive up to 35% more views than landscape videos. Users can watch square videos easily whilst scrolling through the feed without turning the mobile sideways.

Facebook live

Give Facebook live a try. As you would expect, this is when a video is recorded and broadcasted simultaneously.

Going ‘live’ can create a buzz as it gives an ‘in the moment’ look of a business and what you do. Doing video life and unedited can seem more personal and authentic, as there is no chance to edit or perfect the footage. Viewers can also comment and ask questions that the creator can respond to in real-time.

Some people are more likely to watch live streams than pre-recorded videos. Figures indicate people spend more than three times longer watching a Facebook Live video than video that is no longer live.

Your followers receive a notification when you go live and promote the fact you will go live 1–2 weeks beforehand if you feel the video will add value to your audience. You want to ensure people know it is happening and are available to watch.

Facebook Stories

Over 500 million people view Facebook Stories every day. Stories are photo or short video posts in a vertical format (for mobile phones) that appear in vertical format and disappear 24 hours. Photos last for five seconds, videos up to 20 seconds before it skips to the next story.

Stories from your friends or pages you follow are arranged based on an algorithm based on your engagement. Found at the top of the News Feed, meaning Stories are quite prominent to the platform.

Snapchat originally popularised the concept which has now spread to other platforms, including LinkedIn.

Post ‘stories’ of your workday, special projects, locations you visit or the products you sell. Give viewers a snapshot of your business.

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Post frequency

When and how frequently to post is an important consideration. Posting too often or not often enough will reduce your organic reach. Organic reach is the number of people who see your post in their feed.

Your marketing patterns can also impact how your audience views your business. If you post occasionally, your audience will stop looking for your content and will be less engaged.

Consumers might think you are unreliable compared to another business who posts consistently.

Would you trust a business who has not updated their Facebook Page for months? Posting consistency is essential to building a strong brand.

On the flip side, posting too frequently means your audience may get sick of being bombarded with your content and may unfollow you. It is also hard to keep the quality high if you post too frequently as it takes time and effort to create quality content.

Research has indicated a stark difference between business pages and media pages with post frequency. Media-focused pages have an allowance of a lot more content before being penalised by the algorithm. For brands, aim for post per day (5–10 posts a week); and for a media company, up to seven posts a day (approx. 50 posts a week).

The timing of when you post on social media can impact your engagement. The highest traffic on Facebook occurs around mid-day Wednesday and Thursday. Try and post in this window and vary the other times you post, to see what works for you and your audience.

To help optimise your strategy, try creating a content calendar with a plan for what types of content you will post and when to ensure variety and keep you accountable to a schedule.

Make most holidays, popular shopping dates and seasons such as Easter, Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, and winter.

Is your product mostly consumed at certain times of the year? If so, you will need focused marketing on the lead up to these dates.

Engage with your audience

Take time to respond to peoples’ comments on your posts and reply messages. Engagement encourages engagement, and socialising with your followers creates a community.

Engaging with your audience keeps you top of mind and your followers will feel more valued and validated that you care what they had to say. Regular engagement should be a positive influence on whether they become a customer, or you retain their business.

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Facebook Ads

Facebook has led the way in terms of hyper-personalised advertising.

As annoying as it sounds, if you want to use Facebook to its full potential, you will need to pay for advertising. Organic reach (unpaid) has been declining for several years.

Ads help your content to reach a broad but targeted audience and use the platform to its full potential.

There are 7 million advertisers on Facebook, which means newsfeed space is highly competitive and therefore, organic reach has reduced, and the algorithm favours paid content.

Cost-per-click varies, but it will probably cost you around 50 cents to $2 per click.

“The time spent on Facebook by individuals and the accessibility of Facebook using mobile phones, Facebook represents a highly familiar tool for many individuals and one of the easiest sources from which to find information online.” (Önder, Gunter, & Gindl, 2020)

It is vital to set up a Facebook pixel if you are sending traffic to your website. This pixel is a piece of code placed on your website that track who visits and their behaviour. You can then remarket to people who have already visited your website.

The power of remarketing is that you know these people are interested in what you do because of their behaviour, so your advertising spends very targeted.

For example, you could target people who put an item from your store in their cart but did not purchase. Advertise to these people a special offer which hopefully they cannot refuse.

Types of ads

Facebook offers a lot of ad types. Majority of Facebook Ad revenue is from mobile, so make sure your ads are in mobile-first format. Before getting into the different types of ads, you can ‘boost’ an existing post. If you create a post that you think would work well as an ad, you can boost that content to reach a larger audience that you chose.

First, ads need a goal. Goals can include generating leads, receive messages or to increase website traffic. Facebook offers three broad Ad Objectives.

Awareness is about putting your brand out there, so potential customers know you exist. Tell your story and showcase your knowledge and expertise to connect with potential customers. This phase targets the top of a sales funnel.

Consideration is when people start seriously thinking about your brand and what you offer. These consumers consider purchase options and begin to do their research and want more information about what you offer. This phase targets the middle of the funnel.

Conversion is when people carry out a specific action such as purchasing a product or service. The goal is to encourage this action to convert customers, targeting the bottom of the funnel.

The Individual ads that you can create for different goals are:

• image or video ads
• carousel ads
• slideshow ads
• collection ads
• instant experiences ads
• dynamic ads
• Messenger ads
• Stories ads
• augmented reality ads
• playable ads.

Facebook has recently introduced Augmented Reality tools for advertisers. Augmented reality ads can help demonstrate what a specific product looks like on a consumer, such as trying on makeup or clothing.

Try out different types of ads and run two to three ads at a time for testing.

Change only one element in each ad, such as an image, the copy, or the call to action; then measure the performance. Called single variable testing, this helps you to improve your ads based on their performance.

If you do not test your ads’ different components, they could be under-performing, and you do not know why.

Use automation tools that Facebook provides, such as:

Automatic Placements, which is when Facebook chooses your ad placements. Facebook can also run ads on Instagram, Messenger, and other relevant apps or webpages.

Campaign Budget Optimization is setting your budget at the campaign level, instead of at an ad level. It may not spend your budget equally, but instead, it gives the flexibility to spend in the best way it seems fit. Underperforming ads receive less allocation, and well-performing ads receive a higher ratio of spending.

Dynamic ads are versions of your ads personalised to each person who views them, depending on their behaviour and what types of content they are likely to engage. Several images, videos and text are supplied by the user, used as the basis for each unique ad.

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Facebook analytics

Track and measure how your performance of organic posts — will help you know what types of content do well and what does not. Observe popular times to post, for example, and other variables, refine your content strategy accordingly to yield better results.

Use Facebook’s free internal analytics tool ‘Insights’ to provide you with a clear picture of how your business page is doing. Key metrics to monitor are:

• Post Reach (how many people saw your posts)
• Engagement (how many people liked, clicked, shared, or commented)
• Posts that result in people unliking your Page
• Follower growth
• Audience insight such as the audience demographics engaging with your content

Analytics can also help you build targeted custom audiences for future ads based on what you learn about your content engagement.

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Facebook Groups

As of April 1999, there are more than 10 million Facebook groups, with 1.4 billion people using them every month. Consumer behaviour on Facebook has started to move away from engaging on public pages to private groups, focusing more on business owners moving forward.

Facebook Groups are like a forum — a discussion platform and communication space for people with similar interests.

Groups are often hyper-focused on a specific topic. They tend to bring high engagement, as group members are passionate about and interested in the topics discussed. Group members get to know each other, and it becomes a community.

Members often openly discuss topics related to the group and trade information and tips with each other. Groups become a trusted source of information for consumers.

Therefore, groups are an excellent opportunity for businesses to create content for Facebook groups in their niche, to showcase their expertise and provide value. 

Using this strategy in groups builds trust and develops long-term relationships with potential customers or people who may refer to customers.

“Thanks to social media, business can build such emotional relations with their customers based on the mutual interaction in the online community.” (Copuš, & Čarnogurský, 2017)

Discussions in groups can be quite casual and even personal. People are opinionated as groups are typically private and away from family and friends, so they are considered safe.

Consider creating your own Facebook group, around the topic of your business.

You could also join existing groups relevant to your business/industry.

Moderators facilitate what happens in the group. Everyone in the group can be invited or usually approved, and admin can remove people for behaviour against the group’s rules or spirit.

There are no paid ads in groups, but because the audience already in a segment, e.g., fans of basketball or a TV show, which can be just as powerful as targeted ads.

Some may allow you to post about your business or products. However, often groups with no limits on promotional posts become full of SPAM.

Every single group will not be suitable, but the great thing is there are usually many appropriate options that you can choose.

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Summary

In sum, Facebook offers a massive opportunity for businesses to grow brand awareness and have conversations with their target audience.

If you remember to create value for your target audience and engage with your audience, you really cannot go wrong with your strategy.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the content.