Before you develop a marketing strategy, there’s one big question you have to ask. Are you a B2B or B2C business?
B2B means you sell things to other businesses while B2C is a business that deals with consumers. You might not think this has a bearing on your marketing strategy, but it does! There are some stark differences between B2B and B2C marketing campaigns. If you follow a B2C strategy for a B2B business, it’s likely to result in failure.
Below, you’ll see some of the biggest differences between the two, so you can figure out how to approach things for your business.
1. Relationships
There’s a huge difference in how B2B and B2C businesses approach relationships. A business-to-business organization is more likely to focus on creating long-lasting personal relationships with customers. It’s more geared toward securing contracts and generating repeat business. B2B companies want to be trusted by their customers so they keep coming back for more.
Business-to-consumer organizations focus more on the transactional side of things. It’s less about nurturing personal relationships and more about encouraging people to buy things. These businesses create marketing campaigns that target things like boosting your visibility, generating leads, and making people actively buy things.
As a result, everything about each business’s campaigns can differ. If you create marketing content with a B2C spin for a B2B business, you’ll completely miss the mark as you’re failing to develop meaningful relationships.
2. The Buyer’s Journey
Every customer goes on a journey before they buy something. In the B2C world, companies are dealing with individual consumers. Therefore, the marketing strategy focuses on moving them through the buyer’s journey as quickly as possible. You want to funnel them through every single stage so they become customers ASAP. This is possible because B2C companies only have to deal with consumers, whereas things differ in the B2B world.
A business that sells things to other businesses will not deal with individuals. Instead, they have to deal with numerous decision-makers within these companies. The buyer’s journey becomes less about getting through each stage ASAP and more about nurturing the lead for as long as you can. B2B companies have to maintain excellent communication through the buyer’s journey, proving to the decision-makers that they’re the right business to choose for a particular product or service.
In short, B2C is way more salesy in this aspect. It’s more about showing someone something, making them want it, and encouraging them to buy it. With B2B marketing, you need a more nuanced approach that takes longer and builds trust.
3. Brand Image
Branding forms an integral part of both B2B and B2C marketing. With the former, you have to brand yourself in a certain way. It’s all about creating a brand that looks professional by focusing on where you stand in the current market. Put simply, you’re trying to prove to prospective customers that you’re a big deal. More than that, you’re better than the other brands in your industry.
B2C takes a different approach to branding. Here, you have to create emotional messages and connections with the consumer. Deliver a brand image that people relate to, which encourages them to buy things from you.
Needless to say, the branding differences drastically change so many elements of a marketing campaign. Take your website as an example. A B2C website looks nothing like a B2B one because it’s set up to convey brand messages and connect with the consumer on an emotional level. The mistake many B2B businesses make is they follow typical B2C web design trends. This results in a site that conveys the wrong type of brand image. Instead, you need a B2B web design agency to help you create a site that feels right. It should be structured in a way that looks authentic and important, showing that your brand is strongly positioned in your market.
Summary
The best way to summarize the differences between B2B and B2C marketing is that B2B is more focused on logic over emotion.
All of your marketing content will zero in on why your business should be trusted. You provide evidence that shows customers how they’ll benefit from what you offer. It’s all centered around the idea of positioning your business as a reliable and trustworthy one that will provide customers with a good ROI.
Conversely, B2C is more about emotion. You wish to create emotional connections with customers and do things that persuade them to make purchases all the time. Your marketing content is more emotional – it can be funny, light-hearted, or play on customers’ particular interests.
The bottom line is that you need to understand which approach to take for your company. So, before you start developing a strategy, make sure you pick the right one depending on who your customers are.
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