Last week, Eulogy! put out a story for one of our marketing services clients on opt-out rates, exploring how many people in certain areas of the UK are dropping out of circulation lists for marketing communications. While researching how big companies react to this kind of news, I found myself wondering, not for the first time, why the business world is so insistent on separating ‘consumers’ from ‘businesspeople’. Why can’t we be realistic and realise that people can be both?
In PR, we obviously distinguish between consumer and B2B, because the type of work we do for clients in these spaces is very different. With consumer projects you are often trying to sell the idea of a product or service, while B2B PR is generally more about instigating and maintaining debate and discussing industry issues. However, in terms of audience, we need to be very careful not to pigeonhole people into separate camps. Just because Joe Bloggs is in marketing or runs a successful business, doesn’t mean that he’s not a consumer who prefers to read NME over Heat magazine or likes Cornflakes better than All-Bran.
Particularly with regard to the rise of online technology and social networks, we have seen a raft of articles in the business and marketing press advising companies on how to talk to their consumers. However, what we mustn’t do is create an ‘us and them’ atmosphere and talk about consumers as if they are a breed apart.
It’s the fact that we are all consumers, and have our likes, dislikes, preferences and pet hates, that makes us able to work better as businesspeople and indeed as commentators on what consumers respond to. I certainly think I do a better job writing about these issues because I reflect on my own responses to marketing. I don’t consider myself an insider because I work in the world of marketing services; I am an insider because I draw on my own experiences as a consumer to make a judgement.
