An essential part of any marketing effort is knowing your audience. You can better target them if you have a stronger understanding of who they are. There are multiple ways you can accomplish this. For example start by doing research, studying your competitors, getting to know your customers personally, conducting surveys, and monitoring reader comments and engagement. This can lead to more conversations, which will ultimately lead to more money.
Something you may be asking yourself: Are selling to a business and selling to a consumer really that different? Do you have to have separate strategies for each?
In short, yes. You will need different methods and materials for marketing to these distinct groups, as well as unique marketing approaches. However, you can use the same logic in targeting both.
Business-to-Business:
When selling to businesses, you are usually making a bigger sale than to individual consumers. This means it is going to be a harder sale to make. Planning for a business market is similar to a consumer market in that you still need a stronger understanding of your audience. However, you will have to consider their position in their market, rather than individual demographics.
When selling to another business, you will need to focus on building relationships and communicating to generate leads. Your audience will be made of individuals who also understand marketing, so they will be harder to sell to. In this situation, you will want to appeal to authority.
How will your product benefit their business? How can you show them this?
Target those who could convince other businesses to buy your product, who could be advocates for your product. These are the people who will actually use and benefit from what you’re selling.
Business-to-Consumer:
What are you selling? Who is buying? How do you find them? Study the demographics of your average consumer. How old are they? Male or female? Where are they located?
If you have more than one audience, you should determine the percentage breakdown of your entire audience. Is there a middle ground in which you can target both? Find out where they spend most of their time – watching television, surfing the web. That will be where you can reach them. Then, you can divide your funds appropriately and allocate money to the most important media outlets.
Let’s Get Started!
The bottom line is that the decision to buy depends on the buyers’ perspective about the purchase. For businesses, they want to use your product to better their business. For consumers, they want to use your product to better their daily lives in some way. Understand what motivates your buyer. Help them determine the value of your product. Build brand awareness and foster positive conversations around your brand.
Looking for help determining your target consumer? Our POTENZA Marketing experts can help!
– Molly Little, Summer Marketing Intern
Marketing For Your Audience: B2B vs. B2C
