6 Consumer Marketing Tactics That Work

What is Consumer Marketing?

Consumer marketing is promoting a product or service to individual consumers for their personal use. It’s focused on enticing new customers to try a business’s products or services and keeping existing customers happy and loyal to a brand.

Consumer Marketing vs. Business Marketing

You’ve probably heard of the terms B2B and B2C marketing. Despite sounding similar and being a part of the world of marketing in general, both industries mainly focus on different key targets. With B2B, businesses are solely the main audience with this type of marketing.

The B2B marketing industry has a finite set of audiences to cater to, causing it to be less fast-paced than B2C marketing. Whereas, with B2B marketing, or consumer marketing, there is an endless number of potential customers to cater to.

Consumer marketing tactics:

Make Emotional Connections

People remember information better when it connects with their emotions. While on some level people want to know how your product works, most want to know how their lives will be better for having it. In other words, the ad showing the happy family enjoying a birthday dinner at home will resonate more than the ad for the stove and oven that lists all its features.

Use Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

Fear is an emotion, and it gets reactions. However, you do not have to make people fear for their lives. Just the fear of missing out (FOMO) on something good can be powerful. Missing out on your big sale or your new limited-edition product can be an effective focus of your consumer marketing campaign.

Promote Exclusivity

Everyone wants to feel important like they are part of an exclusive group. Advertising that mines this need can be remarkably effective. Promoting your digital product as the choice of a discerning parent, car owner, or woodworker invites people into a world that is somewhat set apart from the everyday. It makes them feel as if they have “arrived.”

Partner with Other Brands

Creative marketing partnerships can be terrific for jump-starting a consumer marketing campaign. A great partnership will generally bring out both parties’ best efforts (out of a sense of competitiveness, if nothing else), while exposing your brand to a new audience. A clothing brand might partner with a musician, while a bakery could partner with a florist during a wedding season.

Develop a Strong Social Media Strategy

Posting on Facebook and Twitter should not just be an afterthought for your brand. A strong social media digital strategy can be tremendous for brand building. Choose two or three platforms through which to focus your efforts. Create an editorial schedule for posting and commit to it. Most platforms offer extensive analytics so you can learn what works and who your audience is right away. Knowing your audience will be very important if you do any paid social media advertising due to the powerful targeting tools social media platforms have.

Don’t Be Afraid to Be Funny or Offbeat

While some products or services will never be appropriate for humor, others are. Brands that can laugh at themselves along with consumers pick up considerable goodwill from customer bases. Whether it is the Old Spice guy on a horse or cat construction machines playing a game of Jenga, something funny or offbeat can be a welcome distraction for consumers.