B2P (Business-to-People) marketing is a relatively new concept as opposed to more well-known B2C and B2B varieties. B2C marketing targets specific demographics (e.g., 20 to 30 year-old males who are keen on sports or 18-25-year-old women with particular tastes), singling out groups that are the most likely to buy a product or a service and trying to define their common characteristics. However, in reality, such groups are hopelessly abstract and don’t take into account a lot of things. No two members of such groups are ever completely the same: they have their own life situations, tastes, preferences, and interests. It is the job of B2P marketing to take these into account and speak individually to each customer. In this article, we will cover some of the strategies that can help you do this.
1. Customizable products
Online product designers not just allow the client to customize the product to fit them better – it is just plain fun to use. Or, as a variant, you can give your clients an opportunity to combine several products from your store (for example, to create a unique personal look that can be later saved as a favorite in the client’s personal profile). And, unlike many other strategies, this approach doesn’t ask a lot from the shop owner – product designers can easily be implemented in Magento.
2. Personalization of communications
Long gone are the times when it was considered normal to spam the customer with randomly selected offers in the hope that at least some of them will stick. This practice has always been annoying; today, in the age of ever-growing personalization, it is unacceptable. Communication between your store and the customer should be as personal as possible. Perhaps you cannot afford to use as sophisticated recommendation algorithms as the ones that are used by Amazon or Netflix, but there are always simpler (yet still effective) ways to achieve similar results. For example, you can offer your clients to answer a quiz that will help you sort out their preferences and tastes and be better prepared to recommend them what they may actually be interested in rather than random positions from your store.
3. Virtual fitting rooms
One of the greatest problems online clothing retailers face is that their clients have no way to see how they would look in the clothes they are going to buy, which makes every purchase a hit-and-miss by definition. This problem can be at least someone alleviated through the use of AR or VR, allowing the visitors to fit clothes on their full-height photo or a customizable virtual dummy. Implementing such a strategy may be costly, but depending on the size of your business, it can be extremely effective.
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4. Personal response to customer queries and complaints
Social media is not just a place where you can promote your brand. It is also a platform where you can listen to what your customers say about it – and if you really respond to it swiftly and courteously, providing useful information, this is going to become an invaluable addition to your engagement strategy. The thing is, an experience of encountering a problem and having it quickly and efficiently solved by the company is more memorable for a customer than an interaction with a business that runs without a hitch. While you probably cannot afford to react as fast as JetBlue with their Twitter, it still can make a lot of difference.
5. Get serious with your wishlist
Most online stores have wishlists, but the majority of them never go beyond the very basic functionality, merely letting customers set aside certain products for easier access later on. If you want to achieve better personalization, you will have to go deeper. Let the customer divide the products in their wishlist into segments, set up a calendar with purchase references, add an option to easily download the entire wishlist as an Excel sheet or print it out and so on.
The goal of B2P marketing is selling to the audience of one – to make every client feel as if you talk directly to him. Of course, we are still a long way from complete personalization – but you can make the first steps in this direction even now.