We all engage with content marketing every day, whether we choose to or not. With more and more businesses waking up to the importance of creating compelling, tailored content marketing, now is the time to invest in getting it right and standing out.
Business-to-consumer (B2C) content marketing covers a lot. Right now, blogs, social media shopping tools, and influencer marketing are among the top marketing channels — and the ones that see the best return on investment.
Blogs, social media shopping tools, and influencer marketing are among the top marketing channels for B2C companies.
According to a recent Hubspot report, content marketing is shooting high up on the list of priorities for most businesses. While video may dominate social media, it’s all about keywords and SEO everywhere else online. It’s the third most popular area for marketers to invest in, with 88% of marketers who already invest in SEO planning to increase or maintain their investment this year.
You don’t want to be left behind. This complete guide to B2C content marketing has everything you need to craft a killer strategy (or refine your existing one), from social media to SEO content and everything in between.
In this guide:
- What is B2C content marketing?
- Why is content marketing important for B2C companies?
- Common B2C content marketing mistakes (and how to avoid them)
- How are B2C and B2B content marketing different?
- Content marketing FAQs
Let’s jump right in with the basics.
What is B2C content marketing?
Business-to-consumer (B2C) content marketing is all about promoting products and services to consumers. It involves creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to engage the right audience.
When done correctly, B2C content marketing boosts brand awareness, fosters customer loyalty, and drives sales.
There are many types of effective B2C content marketing, including:
- Blogs
- Videos
- Infographics
- Case studies
- eBooks
- User-generated content (UGC)
- Checklists
- Social content and memes
- Testimonials and reviews
- Whitepapers
- How-to guides or courses
- Paid ad content through influencers
Some of these formats are more common than others. It’s all about finding the medium that works best for your brand.
Two of the most popular formats are SEO and social media. Let’s look at those in more detail.
Content marketing and SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is written content published online to reach new audiences and educate existing customers about the brand. It includes anything you’d put on a website, from landing page copy and blogs to product descriptions.
However, simply having these elements present online isn’t enough. Optimizing your online content marketing for search and discovery — while still creating engaging and easy-to-read articles — is the best way to ensure customers find your content to engage with it.
Keywords are the magic tool here. Find the right keywords that your audience is already searching for and include them in enough places (and the right places!) throughout your copy while also providing relevant information for your audience and you’re well on your way to creating excellent SEO content.
Some things to keep in mind when creating SEO-driven blogs and articles:
- Focus on one or two keywords to avoid diluting the article’s power
- Use keywords in the title, and make it clear from the beginning what your article is about
- Weave the keywords throughout, in a natural way
- Stay on topic and deliver on what’s promised in the headline
SEO can be a tricky beast to master. To learn all the ins and outs of creating powerful search engine-optimized content that actually delivers results, check out our complete SEO guide for more.
Content marketing and social media
If you think of your SEO content as the message, social media is your megaphone. Social platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Facebook are great ways to get the word out about the other types of content you’ve created.
Social media is also a great way to display popular forms of content, like short-form videos and images, to draw in new audiences. As you already know, social media is an opportunity to reach millions of new eyes — you’ve just got to nail the strategy.
There are three main things to remember when developing a content marketing strategy for social media.
1. Focus on the right channels
We know it’s a saturated market out there. There are so many social channels to choose from, so investing equal amounts of time into each one may spread your resources too thin. Instead, hone in on the channels with the highest potential. For example, if your core audience is under 30, perhaps TikTok and Pinterest will be more valuable. But if you’re selling to Gen X professionals, then Facebook and LinkedIn might be a better fit.
2. Tailor your copy to fit each channel
Every social platform is different and has different audiences, tones, and purposes. Be sure to familiarize yourself with each one, then craft your copy to fit the vibe.
3. Analyze and modify your strategy accordingly
The most effective social strategies include continuous monitoring, data analysis, and modifications. Social media is always changing, so it pays to keep an eye on your content, notice what’s working, and change what isn’t.
Why is content marketing important for B2C companies?
The marketing efforts of all B2C brands involve speaking directly to their customers and buyers. So it’s important to grab consumers’ attention, encourage them to engage with your brand, check out your products and services, and keep your brand name in mind.
Content marketing allows B2C brands to engage with their target audience meaningfully, establish a brand voice, and humanize themselves a little in the process. Plus, content marketing drives traffic while also giving brands a platform to showcase their knowledge and demonstrate their credibility within their niche.
Ultimately, it’s a cost-effective way for businesses to reach their consumers and encourage them to continue to engage with the brand.
Some of the benefits of B2C content marketing include:
- Building brand awareness, especially when it’s used to craft compelling stories with your content. Stories are more memorable than listing facts alone, so they can go a long way toward keeping your brand top-of-mind.
- Driving customer engagement through social media, where you can establish a direct line of communication between business and customer.
- Positioning your brand as an expert via informative articles and thought leadership content.
- Boosting organic traffic through SEO-optimized blog posts, landing pages, and product descriptions.
- Nurturing customer loyalty by tailoring content to reach customers at each stage of their buying journey.
- Diversifying market strategies and reaching different audiences with various content formats, like blog posts, videos, and social content.
- Creating evergreen content, like blog posts, addresses customer questions and can live on your website forever.
Common B2C content marketing mistakes (and how to avoid them)
If it feels like your B2C content marketing strategy is falling flat in some places, you may have made a few missteps along the way. Let’s go through some of the most common marketing mistakes so you can easily avoid them in the future.
Focusing too much on top-of-the-funnel content
Your content shouldn’t solely focus on attracting new customers. Ideally, your content strategy should target people at every step of the sales funnel, from awareness and interest to purchase.
Not focusing on high-quality content
You want to aim for quality over quantity here. Cranking out a huge library of content might get you clicks, but unless it’s thoughtful, relevant, and high-quality, it won’t result in actual engagement with your brand.
Ignoring SEO best practices
Some common mistakes people make when creating SEO-driven content include long-tail keywords, engaging in keyword stuffing, and not updating content to stay relevant. Again, our master guide to creating SEO content will come in handy here.
Creating irrelevant content
Three words: know your audience. You can have a beautifully crafted strategy with perfectly tailored SEO content, but it won’t succeed if it’s irrelevant to your audience. Figure out what they want and need, then tailor your strategy around that.
Not staying consistent
Busy marketers may not want to hear it, but there’s simply no point in having a blog unless you update it regularly. Sure, you can crank out 10 SEO articles in a year and hope they attract traffic, but the more consistently you post, the more eyes you’ll attract.
Forgetting to proofread
It may sound like a simple mistake, but a little error like using their instead of they’re can be enough to turn a customer away. A browser extension like Grammarly can come in handy here.
How are B2C and B2B content marketing different?
In a nutshell, B2C is aimed at consumers (specifically single consumers). Meanwhile, B2B is aimed at businesses (specifically, multiple decision-makers within a business).
Let’s go into a little more detail to really separate the two.
B2C – Business-to-consumer
B2C marketing tends to be more emotional to appeal to consumers’ humanity and influence their buying decisions. It’s more focused on platforms consumers frequent, meeting them where they already are.
B2B – Business-to-business
B2B marketing is more about representing the brand and establishing credibility rather than trying to make a human connection. Companies need to use B2B marketing to display the value and virtues of products or services. Of course, it’s focused more on platforms where business content exists –– think LinkedIn.
So while both have the same goal — marketing a business to ultimately gain sales — the methods are pretty different.
Content marketing FAQs
As a content marketing agency, we’ve fielded a lot of questions on the subject. Here are some of the most common questions we get about B2C content marketing:
What’s the difference between inbound marketing and content marketing?
Content marketing is actually part of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing aims to attract potential customers and guide them through the buyer’s journey, ultimately resulting in a sale. Successful inbound marketing delivers the right content to the right people at the right time.
Content marketing is a little more specific — creating valuable and relevant content to attract, engage, and inform the target audience. The primary directive is to address and solve a customer’s problems, while subtly promoting products or services.
Content marketing is a crucial component of inbound marketing, while the latter is composed of more elements focused on relationship building and the customer experience.
What are the 4 Cs of content marketing?
The four Cs of content marketing, which determine a business’s success, are:
- Customer: the heart of your marketing strategy, your main priority, and who you should tailor your content for.
- Cost: balancing expenses with incoming cash flow. Every marketing strategy needs money, but it should see a return on that investment.
- Convenience: the customers’ shopping journey. If it’s too hard, they’ll simply go elsewhere.
- Communication: the way you connect with potential customers, through traditional advertising, social media campaigns, and word-of-mouth. It’s essential for building trust and establishing a brand name.
What are content marketing techniques?
There are many forms that content marketing can take. Some examples include creating and sharing articles and blogs, making and distributing a podcast, posting text-based informative posts to social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter, or creating videos and other media for social media.
Does content marketing work?
Yes, absolutely! They say content is king — and for good reason. The pandemic increased content consumption by over 200%, and it’s a proven winner for converting leads.
It’s clear that, when executed well, content marketing can be a huge asset for any business.
Work with B2C content marketing experts to increase your ROI
Ready to get your B2C content marketing strategy polished up, but not quite sure where to start? Check out Scribly to learn more about B2C content marketing, and content marketing in general.
We offer content marketing services to help your business grow. Get in touch today for expert help creating a B2C strategy and for end-to-end content marketing management.
Let’s work together to get your business in front of as many new eyes as possible!
