7. Consumer and Business-To-Business Audiences

An important distinction in direct mail and indeed in many other areas of copywriting is whether your messages are aimed at the general public (or sections of it) or businesses. Nowadays these two markets are often known by the abbreviations they were given during the dotcom boom – ‘b2c’ for ‘business-to-consumer’ and ‘b2b’ for ‘business-to-business’. Some of the differences between these two types of work are:

• In consumer marketing, the average number of prospects targeted tends to be larger.
• Targeting in b2b tends to be by industry sector and job title.
• In both areas the key is to get the attention of the purchase decision-maker, but in b2b this can be more difficult because mail is often intercepted by ‘gatekeepers’ – secretaries, private assistants and so on.
• Because people move jobs and companies so often, it is almost impossible to keep business-to-business lists up to date and accurate.