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B2C Marketing

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

by Carl Da-Costa-Greaves

What is it?
The terms B2B Marketing and B2C Marketing were originally coined in order to tell the difference between companies that sold to consumers (B2C) and those organisations who sold to other businesses (B2B).

While marketing to each of these types is fundamentally the same, including newsletter services, direct marketing, internet marketing, advertising, public relations and Search Engine Optimisation. They are different in the way they are executed, what the message has to say, the results of the marketing activities and the metrics behind measuring the success.

B2C marketing strategies have a different focus. As a buyer, the consumer is often simply continually looking for the best price and will typically do a fair amount of searching around doing price comparisons, before moving on to purchase the product.

B2C internet marketing is one of the most advanced consumer marketing strategies that revolutionised the business world. It not only helps in developing a direct contact between the consumer and business but also allows the entrepreneurial businessman to independently, with low set up costs, advertise and sell his products and services in a simple way, using the like of eBay and Amazon.

When to use it?
The goal of B2C marketing is to convert shoppers into buyers as consistently as possible. B2C companies will use more coupons, displays, storefronts, and discount offers to encourage their shoppers to buy.

What does it achieve?
B2C marketing campaigns are focused entirely on transactions which are shorter in duration and designed specifically to capture a potential customers interest right away.

One aspect of B2C marketing that is different from B2B marketing is that many companies are focused on consumer loyalty. Loyalty is the only way that you can successfully keep your customers coming back. When you have great customer service along with your marketing campaign, you will have great success.

Key steps:
The first step in determining your marketing strategy is the same whether you are doing B2B or B2C marketing. First, you need to identify who the customer is and why they should hear what you have to say.

It is at this point that you will notice the difference between B2C and B2B marketing. Just remember that your marketing plan does need to take into account these fundamental differences between B2B and B2C marketing. Knowing this, you can develop the right activities for your individual markets.

Tags: consumer marketing, newsletter services, search engine optimisation
Posted in How To Do..., Marketing | 2 Comments »

Cost of Internet Marketing

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Whether you’re just starting out or re-evaluating your online strategy it’s important for you to get both your plan and budget right. To be successful, you need to have a solid internet marketing strategy and be realistic about the true costs of doing it properly. The rule “Build it and they will come” rarely works in online space. For example; too many businesses spend £1000’s on getting a website developed, only to find they have no money left to promote it. Here’s our top 5 list of what you should plan for with any new internet marketing campaign:

1. Microsite/Website development/design & maintenance -The development of a new website or microsite has many variables and overall cost depends on factors such as whether it’s static or dynamic, whether it includes a blog or shopping cart, is the design bespoke or a template. The functionality of your website will be determined by your overall internet marketing strategy. Remember: in the online world, all promotional activity with eventually lead to your website.

2. SEO – Search Engine Optimisation The bottom line is that the majority of website traffic comes from search engines and directories. While the organic search engine traffic is free (no click costs), you do need to invest in some sort of SEO program to ensure you’re maximizing this free search engine traffic.

3. Pay Per Click (PPC) If you’re looking for some quick wins in terms of traffic and results from your website then PPC can offer this. With a well setup Google AdWords campaign, you can have highly targeted visitors delivered to your website almost instantly. It’s a great way to ensure you’re still getting a return on your website investment whilst your SEO and other strategies take effect.

4. Email marketing Email marketing is a very cost effective form of direct marketing. The biggest challenge, especially for start up businesses is finding and building permission based contact lists. So it often comes into its own after a business is up and running for a while, and you’ve had a chance to build a decent subscriber base.

5. Blogs Hosting and authoring your own blog can be extremely refreshing and insightful as it requires a regular analysis and reflection of your business, markets, successes and failures in order to create up-to-date content; all of these are the by-product of blogs, but I think are just as much an important benefit as to the blog itself. Whether used for general news, training, product guides, promotion or notices, blogging is firmly rooted as a favourite tool for internet marketing. Guide to expected costs With the above in mind you now get a much clearer and more realistic picture of what is required in order to get serious about your online marketing. To give you even further insight we have put together a list of average market pricing (at the mid range) for the above services.

Please note this is in no way a firm quotation from Studiowide, but more of an indication of average market costs.

	Cost Guide
Website Development – standard functionality	£700+
SEO – 2 x 6month programs	£2400+
Pay Per Click – 6 months	£720+
Email marketing – 12 months	£1400+
Blog – 12 months (assuming this is linked with Email marketing)	£1000+
TOTAL (Annual cost)	£6220+