Top tips to market your business directly to consumers
The Coronavirus pandemic, stock-piling and lock-down has changed the face of business as we know it. One of the big trends we’ve seen since the closure of pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants, is businesses who usually sell business-to-business (B2B) changing tact and selling direct-to-consumer (D2C).
We’ve seen some amazing local brands change things up quickly and do an absolutely brilliant job, from using social media to sell and engage with local customers to quickly adapting procedures and menus overnight.
The shift in focus makes absolute sense and for some businesses will be the difference between staying afloat or potentially closing their doors for good.
On the face of it, starting to sell direct to the end consumer seems like a simple change, but there’s a lot more to it than just starting to offer delivery straight to the doorsteps of people homes. In order to sell to consumers and do it right here are the key steps we’d recommend you take.
1. Get to know your audience
First things first, get to know your audience. We do this exercise with all new clients to help identify their ideal target audience. It will give you a clear focus and will help to guide all of your marketing decisions from setting the right price point to working out which marketing channels are right for you.
Depending on the time you have available you can create full blown personas, give them names, a life story, an image. Pin this up somewhere you can see it and whenever you’re questioning yourself or making a business decision ask yourself if your customer would buy into it.
You need to think about how old they are, where they live, their disposable income, their values, are they attracted by quality or do they like to make the most of a good discount?
Download our handy infographic here for some good prompts to get you started.
2. Get your ‘tone of voice’ right
This may sound like marketing jargon, but hitting the right tone is really important when selling direct to consumers. What do we mean by tone of voice? Tone of voice is the way in which you communicate, it’s a simple guideline to make sure you communicate in a way that suits your audience across all touch points – email, website copy, social media posts, phone calls etc.
Think of it as the difference between the way you’d speak to your friends and the way you’d speak to your boss or your old Head Teacher. The way you need to talk to your new customers will be very different to the way you used to talk to your trade customers. Generally, you’ll need to be slightly more informal and conversational in tone, try to make your customers feel like your talking directly to them. Have your target audience and persona in mind and try to pitch it right.
Some top tips:
Abbreviations and colloquialisms are encouraged
Show personality and give them a glimpse at the person or team they’re buying from
Don’t go into too much detail on any technical terms and keep the complicated, nuts and bolts of what you do to an FAQ page on your site
Read it aloud – if you stumble over a word then don’t use it. You want to sound like YOU are having a conversation with them
If you can get the copy on your website, any marketing materials such as flyers and the captions you’re using on social media to speak in the same language as your target customer then you’ll be on to a winner.
3. Create a website
Whether you need to build a website from scratch or make some changes to your current site, there are some quick simple points to cover off to make sure it’s working hard for you and talking directly to your customers.
Short snappy homepage – keep it short, keep it simple and make sure your customers don’t have to scroll and search to find what they need to know. Make your ‘call to actions’ very clear – e.g. click here for pricing, order here, try us for free, book a delivery slot now.
Clean simple colour palette – when looking at your design it’s easy to get a little carried away but less is always more! Try not to use more than 3-4 colours in total to keep your website looking sharp and easy on the eye.
About us page – customers like to know who they’re buying from so use this page to tell your story. Why do you do what you do, how did you create your business, let them know where you source your products or materials from. All of this will help paint a picture of who you are as a brand and convince people to buy from you.
Shopping function – lots of websites allow you to add this function on, but the key is to make it as simple and intuitive as possible. If the ordering and payment functions are long-winded or keep crashing you’ll lose sales. Make sure you include an image or illustration of what they’re buying where possible and go heavy on the product details and descriptions so your customers know exactly what they’re getting.
Contact page – as you’re starting from scratch with a new audience there will always be questions, problems and things you haven’t thought of. This is absolutely OK, we’re all human! As long as your customers have a way of getting in touch with you easily with their questions and queries, and you have the capacity to get back to them quickly then you’ll be forgiven. There’s nothing worse than searching a site for an email address or telephone number so make this clear and easy to find.
If you’re building your website from scratch, we highly recommend using Squarespace. It has a lot of well-designed templates which you can choose from and adapt the colours and fonts etc. to your own brand. It’s simple to use, you can easily add in a shopping function or even a blog later down the line and their online tutorials and help desk are fantastic.
4. Find time for social media
Social media and all of it’s many channels can seem overwhelming but it does offer some great opportunities. Done well you can speak directly to your new customers, create a personal connection to the brand and start to spread the word through recommendations from happy customers.
The key is to keep it simple and manageable. Choose one social media channel and do it well. You DON’T need to be on every single channel. Remind yourself of your target audience from the very first exercise in this post, think about which channel they use the most and start with that one.
Doing social media well is not about chasing numbers and posting left, right and centre, but more about building a steady, engaged following of customers and potential customers. Use it to update them on products, services or activities, to give them a view into your working life, creativity and processes and ask them for feedback and input into what your doing.
Photos of your latest delivery, videos of you creating, tips and tricks linked to your area of expertise are all offering your followers added value and personality and will help you to build a genuine following.
5. Test, test and test again
One of the great things about making the leap to sell direct to consumers now is that there is a real appetite to support local and to help businesses who are adapting. Not to mention the real need for more services and products delivered straight into peoples homes or doorsteps to help them get through these tough times.
One of the best things you can do right now is to test, test, test and ask for feedback. Don’t be shy, ask what you could be doing better, ask your customers what they need right now, test price points, play around with deals and offers.
Most importantly – if you have happy customers encourage them to give you feedback and use it. Add their testimonials to your website, share them on your social media channels and encourage them to share their experience on their own social media. It will all help you to learn, to adapt and grow your business and to flourish.
Looking for more support, a deeper dive into selling D2C or simply don’t have the time to think of any of this but know you should be?!
We’ve got you! The Doers can offer support on all of the above and more,
Need a fresh perspective on your business and marketing strategy or want to fill in the gaps? We’re offering Audit Hour consultation sessions. Via Zoom, we’ll virtually sit and go through any area of your marketing with you and provide you with a report afterwards that breaks it down into a workable strategy. We can look at your website copy, website performance, social media, branding, brand copy and blog content.
£50 +VAT