Business-to-Business Versus Consumer Marketing
Are You Using B2C Techniques in a B2B Environment?
In business-to-business marketing, creative elements are less important than the messaging strategy. In business-to-consumer marketing, creative elements are the strategy.
The tactics we see most often in business-to-business (B2B) marketing are unfortunately the tactics that are often the least effective.
Here’s the problem...
A company creates a nice-looking website with matching brochure and trade show materials that explain how wonderful they are, how great their products and services are, and all the terrific things prospects will get by doing business with them.
But the prospects seem unimpressed by those appeals, and generally ignore the marketing materials. If they buy at all, they often buy for reasons not articulated in the beautiful brochure.
What’s going on? What’s the reason for that disconnect? Why didn’t the expensive materials do their job?
The B2B Mindset
The disconnect happens because the company is trying to use business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing techniques in a B2B environment.
So what’s the difference?
It’s all about the purchasing mentality. There are significant distinctions in how consumers and businesses view purchases, and so there must be corresponding differences in how we communicate to them.
One of the more important disparities is valuation priorities. Businesses place considerations such as risk reduction and image benefit at opposite ends of the spectrum compared to consumer priorities.
Businesses have different valuation priorities than consumers, with risk reduction and image benefit at opposite ends of the spectrum.
There are many other important differences.
Because business-to-business buying decisions are normally made in a different context with different priorities than consumer buying decisions, your marketing strategy must reflect those variations.
Business-to-Consumer Marketing
- Approach: The big creative idea
- Emphasis: Emotional appeal
- Presentation: Emotive images
Business-to-Business Marketing
- Approach: Pragmatic solutions
- Emphasis: Effectiveness, risk reduction
- Presentation: Facts and proof statements
