Today B2C businesses are struggling to generate leads for the business. Whether it is awareness of the product or services or conversion of leads or getting the leads in the first place. In this article, we will discuss the top lead generation strategies for B2C businesses. After reading this article, you need not wander around anywhere else to acquire knowledge about B2C business as we are going to discuss every minute detail required.

What is B2C?

In simple and usable terminology, Business to Consumer is called B2C, in which a business is mainly focused on selling products or services directly to the customers or the final users. Traditional whatever transaction we are doing as a household, starting from purchasing milk and newspaper to hiring a taxi for the office, purchasing groceries and clothes, etc, all come under B2C business.

Even the mobile or television network we are using, our broadband wireless connection, or any OTG subscription too comes under the category of B2C business.

In the world of e-commerce where people purchase online, there are four valid methods of sale namely, B2C, B2B, C2B, and C2C, and out of these four methods the most extensively and commonly used method is B2C.

B2C is the most common method of e-commerce which has increased in importance after the success of e-commerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, etc.

In 1979, the concept of B2C business was first developed by Michael Aldrich, an English inventor and innovator, who used a television set to a transaction processing computer line with a telephone line and thus named it, Teleshopping.

History of B2C

During the 1990s internet started to grow into popularity and thousands of domains got registered, people also got a glimpse of e-commerce through the book named Future Shop (1992), which describes how technology will change the way we are going to sell or purchase, in the future.

Initially, when e-commerce was launched there were lots of cases regarding security breaches, and only after Netscape developed Secure Socket Layers (SSL) did people start to trust the system of e-commerce.

With the rise of top e-commerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, etc the business has grown into popularity, and with time it gained diversity as well as small businesses such as jewelry, furniture, bakery, etc also joined the platform for B2C business.

Before we continue to read the top 10 lead generation strategies for B2C businesses, we must know the problems faced by B2C businesses, special if they are running on an online platform.

Problems Facing by B2C Businesses

Every business has to encounter problems in one way or another, and it goes the same for B2C businesses as well, which are a hindrance to their path of growth and development.

Taking about traditional B2C business, it has its problems like customers have to visit the store personally, sometimes quality becomes an issue, customers are too friendly and ask for debt, etc which people have got used to over time and, in most cases, they ignore these problems.

Here we will primarily talk about the online format of B2C business, which is growing in popularity in the recent period.

As its open for all to start an online business and the installation cost is much lower compared to traditional business, the competition is growing at a fast pace in the B2C e-commerce business. Also, if physical products are sold, there is always a problem related to the delivery system which is challenging for all the companies to get passed by.

Also due to the ever-changing market situation, it is difficult to maintain the brand image consistently and for this, a business has to represent itself continuously on different social media platforms to gain popularity. Sometimes it can be tedious to post continuously on different social media platforms and in some cases, it may lead to trolling as well which the company has to deal with judiciously.

Also, SEO, commonly known as Search Engine Optimisation, is a big headache for most companies as it is one of the most important parameters to achieve success, but also one of the most difficult to achieve owing to the times factor and cost factor.

To solve all these problems and be a successful B2C entrepreneur you need to perform all these tasks which can be done either by outsourcing it to some known digital marketing agency or if you want to take the command of promotion in your hand then you must go for some courses available to learn digital marketing, which can solve all your problem.

If you want to learn digital marketing, in that case, you can join the 4-month advanced digital marketing course offered by Digital Scholar, which is a premium course covering all possible curricula related to digital marketing and will train you with everything you need to promote your business.

Why Is Lead Generation Important? 

To understand the importance of lead generation it’s important to understand what is lead generation, which is not too difficult. Lead generation is the method used by different businesses to generate a lead, which means collecting more data related to possible clients and leading them to a link where they can complete the buying process.

Lead generation is vital to B2C companies because these strategies can stimulate and capture the curiosity of people about a product or a service and compel them to buy the product or service. These strategies also help companies to gather and nurture prospects who could be future buyers of the company.

What is The Difference Between B2C and B2B? 

In terms of the business production process, there isn’t too much to differentiate between the two, but the actual difference is in their targeted customers. B2B focus on selling products or services to other business houses, with a target to sell in bulk whereas B2C target retail sale direct to the customers who are going to use the product to satisfy their direct needs.

One more very important thing to take care of before we continue to study the top 10 lead generation strategies for B2C business is to understand the consumer model for B2C business which can be divided into 5 different categories.

1. Direct Sellers 

In this business model, there is no agent in between who can gain commission or profit from the sale, and the product or service is purchased by the customers directly from the producing units of the company. A direct sellers model can be beneficial to the customers as they can get the product at a cheaper cost due to the absence of any kind of middleman.

Renowned companies like Amway, and ModiCare, can be considered in this category as they follow a networking type of business model where they sell the products directly to their agents.

2. Go-Between

In this business model, there is a middle man dealing between the company and the consumer, which may be an agent, a sales representative, a wholesaler or a retailer, or any other concerned person. In this kind of business, model prices are generally higher compared to the direct sale model due to the presence of a third party.

3. Promotion Through Advertising 

One or two decades ago this model was mostly followed by the top-level entrepreneurs only as they can afford the cost of doing advertisements through the television media and ratio, and a few were referring to the newspaper and other print media for advertisement.

But in today’s era, there are a lot of other resources to promote the business through digital means and now even the marginal business holders can easily promote their business.

4. The Community Model

This too is an important model to sell in bulk where B2C business targets a particular community or group of people who need goods in bulk like we can supply uniforms to all. It’s also easy to locate a community to be targeted from various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc even in our locality we can target schools, offices, etc.

5. Subscription Fee

This is an important mode of B2C businesses especially if we are dealing in services or software, where we can charge our clients based on a subscription fee, which is mostly recurring in nature and it’s a good source of permanent income.

I know the discussion is getting longer but trust us, every minute detail contained in this article is important to know and understand the whole concept, and now is the auspicious moment when we can start our discussion on the top 10 lead generation strategies for B2C business.

Top 10 Lead Generation Strategies for B2C Business

1. Content marketing

The most important part to succeed in B2C business is to create strong contents which are most liked by the consumers and leaves a long-lasting impact on them. Every marketer is familiar with the power and potential of content marketing but only a few know how to do it effectively and efficiently.

The content created by us can be in the form of images, videos, gifs, blogs, etc but they must be strongly capable to convey our message to the consumers and they should be targeted to the correct audience as well.

2. Video marketing for your product

At number 2 in the list of top 20 lead generation strategies for B2C business is video marketing simply because there is nothing better than videos to leave a long-lasting effect on the memories of our clients.

Regarding the platform where you can publish your content, don’t worry, as there are many. Video content can be published primarily on YouTube but apart from that, we can also publish it on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc.

3. Create a Quiz to Promote Self-Awareness

Quizzes are an important way to generate more leads as people are interested in participating in quizzes even for low-range prize money and willingly submit their details. If we are targeting to generate a greater number of leads that can be converted into sales in the future, these quizzes organized can help a lot, and also, they can have a long-lasting on our brand image.

The prizes distributed during the quiz create a positive review of the brand and make people talk about it.

4. Start Affiliate and Loyalty Programs

Affiliate marketing is a great opportunity for creating a sale for our business without putting much effort into it. The affiliate link of our product gives opportunity to others to earn by promoting our, affiliate link, so practically we only have to sacrifice a part of our profit all other tension is taken care of by the others.

There is another way to promote our business apart from the affiliate links, is to run loyalty programs where frequent users will get some additional bonus. Running a loyalty program will induce our existing customers to buy more continuously, giving us all the benefits in the end.

Both of these are important strategies to run our B2C business and are rightly placed at number 4 in the top 10 lead generation strategies for B2C businesses.

5. Run Paid Ads 

At number 5 in the list of top 10 lead generation strategies for B2C business is a great opportunity for business promotion which was not under every business’s grasp in traditional marketing to run paid ads. For decades running ads is considered the best methodology to promote a business but due to the cost factor, most small businesses were unable to take benefit of it.

But with the growth of social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube, every business can run their ads at a cost that is selected by them, and to the audience, to whom they want the ad to be visible.

6. Landing Pages

Landing pages are single web pages containing information related to a business, and in most cases have only one clickable link. Unlike a normal website, a landing page won’t have every information related to your business, but it is focused on a particular subject of the business.

Landing pages are efficient to generate new leads or even conduct sales, as because of limited clickable links, landing pages don’t allow the focus of the consumer to get diverted. A visitor of a landing page only sees the product-related information on the page and he has no other option than to give data or proceed with the sale, making them a profitable expenditure and a perfect sit in the list of top 10 lead generation strategies for B2C business.

7. Personalize email marketing

It May sound like an old option but e-mail marketing is as effective as before, and under no circumstances it can be neglected. E-mail marketing is the most widely used tool for re-targeting the audience who has visited our website or social media page before, as we can lure them by sending freebies or offers.

The best part of e-mail marketing is that it can be personalized which means a mail with a person’s name and other related data can be sent. When we receive an e-mail containing our name and a personalized message, we are most likely to open it and check it out for once.

8. Optimize your web pages

Another inseparable part of the top 10 lead generation strategies for B2C business is your brand’s website which states the reputation of your company. Inferior websites can be a reason why you are not generating leads as predicted and put you in second place in comparison to your competitors.

You need to take care that your website contains every minute detail related to your business and it also has the necessary call to action, which is important for converting visitors into leads.

Another important thing that you need to do with your website is to make it SEO-friendly so that it can be searchable on the search engine pages, whenever someone is looking for something related to your keyword.

9. Social Listing 

Another inevitable part of B2C business is to have our presence felt over social media, and we must acquire a good number of followers as well.

Not even this, we should listen to what our followers have to say related to our business because it will lead us to develop as a brand and help to maintain the brand value for a long period.

10. Invest in Quality Analytics 

The last point in the top 10 lead generation strategies for B2C business, is to invest in quality analytics, which is a golden rule which every business must follow.

End of the day, whatever you have invested in, if you don’t analyze the output of it, it all goes to waste. We must analyze the key point for our business, and check our failure and success, as where we have failed must be changed, and what lead us to success, must gain more attention.

Conclusion

If you are willing to run a B2C business and want to make a profit out of it, all the above-discussed top 10 lead generation strategies are important to be considered, and you must hire an expert for doing the job on your behalf. But it will be better if you acquire knowledge regarding all of these as everything can’t be left to others.

If you are a newbie to B2C business and want to learn everything in detail then as discussed above, you can join the 4-month advanced digital marketing course offered by Digital Scholar, a digital marketing training institute run by the world’s best digital marketing influencer, Sorav Jain.