In marketing, knowing your audience is the first step to making most decisions. Without awareness of who you are appealing to, any campaign can become a chaotic shot in the dark, with little substance and even fewer results to show for it.
The broadest two categories of marketing are B2C (business to consumer, often relying on emotionally driven content) and B2B (business to business, which is generally much more logic-driven).
But there is a third, much lesser-known broad category, one which is quickly rising through the ranks to become a more specialized and researched topic: B2P (business to person).
Admittedly, it sounds like an ostentatious attempt to relabel B2C in a more modern, "woke" format. But it is a very different animal than B2C, as we shall see.
Because it is time for the holidays, lets consider punch (the drink at parties). Punches are made with as many people in mind as possible, while still being one single, homogeneous product. Don't like eggnog? Have a strawberry allergy? Hate the taste of rum? Too bad. Punches are not a common or popular sight these days...they even seem anachronistic, often relegated to Victorian period-pieces and Hallmark movies.
Cocktails on the other hand, are. They are tailored to the individual. Personal preferences, allergies, etc, are all taken into account. They are custom made.
That's the chief point of B2P. "Design your own shoe!" Exclaims Converse. "Build your own PC!" Announces Dell. Are you one of those few people who braids their beard? Here's an Amazon ad on your Facebook showcasing beard braid accessories.
That last one really showcases why B2P is rising, meteorically, as a broad category: The advent of digital advertising's ability to provide customized content to smaller segments of society has allowed for a form of targeting that previously wouldn't have been imaginable.
So how can you make the most of B2P? Find your market, and then divide it into sub-categories. Tweak your content, little by little, for each of them. If you have the time (and budget) you can do this over and over, until you've got content for something so niche you'll swear there's nobody out there who matches the description (Protip: There Is). Because these changes are small, a very big, targeted net can be made today for a marginally higher cost than a less targeted B2C or B2B campaign.
So there you have it, a third category that is quickly coming into its own, and whose mastery can be the difference between massive awareness (and subsequent profit) and simultaneously, specialization.