B2C is now C2C

By Steve Downes, Managing Director, Juice Digital

It seems forever we have been categorising consumer marketing as B2C, or business to consumer. But is that now the appropriate description?

The power of consumer advocacy, whether that’s word of mouth, social media sharing, peer to peer recommendation or customer reviews etc is now universally acknowledged.

Marketing through, not to consumers is now the most effective way of building or maintaining brand awareness and positive sentiment towards it.

So are you doing everything you should to encourage Consumer to Consumer (C2C) marketing?

Can you give positive answers to these questions?

• Why should my customers recommend us to their friends?

• Am I providing them with ‘content’ to share?

• Have I provided a place for my advocates to connect and share?

• Have I provided a place for people to review my brand?

• Do I ‘reward’ my advocates for positive recommendation?

• Do I regularly respond to comments – positive and negative – about my brand?

These are just the starting points for C2C marketing. If you want to succeed you don’t just need to do all these things, you need to do them better than your competitors.