How to: Move from B2B marketing into B2B2C

Move from B2B marketing into B2B2C

What happens when B2B marketers venture into B2B2C territory, selling products to businesses that then offer them to consumers? Danny Bluestone, CEO, Cyber-Duck, gives his top four tips for getting this relationship right

As B2B marketers, we’re well versed in having to explain to others, time and again, how very different B2B marketing can be to consumer marketing. “It’s not all about Facebook!” I hear myself repeat for the umpteenth time.

But what happens when our companies venture into B2B2C territory, selling products and services to businesses that then offer them to consumers?

Success then depends on how well your offering is marketed to consumers and it’s usually unwise to leave this challenge entirely up to your partners.

So, how do you become a consumer marketing expert overnight? The easy answer is to hire in some help (but as CEO of digital agency I’m obviously going to say that). But even selecting the right help requires a basic understanding of the challenges ahead.

Here are four tips to get you started:

1. Understand you audience

One truism remains across B2B, B2C and B2B2C marketing – you need to understand your audience – their needs, preferences, interests and motivations.

The good news is that you’ve been marketing to individuals (albeit in specific job roles) your whole career. So the focus groups, interviews and personas that you usually use to understand your audience are still relevant.

The bad news is that our motivations at work usually differ to those at home. Aristotle once said that in order to communicate effectively, you need to provide people with ‘logos’ (a logical rationale around your offering) and ‘ethos’ (trust and credibility). For B2B purchasing decisions that are, at least in theory, all about ROI, that may be enough. But consumer motivations vary widely, and are often not financial or rational. 

You now need to get to grips with all of these potential motivations; although in doing so you do have some new tools at your disposal, such as quantitative research (e.g. A/B testing) across much larger groups of users.

2. Speak their language

It’s not enough for you to understand consumer motivations when venturing into B2B2C. It’s critical that consumers understand you.

While B2B companies focus on building a select number of strong customer relationships, in the B2B2C world it’s all about volume. Relationships with consumers are typically weaker; attention spans are shorter and first impressions count even more.

That’s why, for instance, in helping our identity data intelligence client, GBG, launch a consumer offering to enable people to access Gov.UK services, we needed to create a dedicated brand, CitizenSafe, that would speak the language of consumers.

Beyond branding, B2B2C campaigns also need to invoke emotional responses to get results. Following Aristotle’s model, marketers should play on the ‘pathos’, or emotions of consumers, as well as the logos and ethos. Regrettably, there’s no simple formula for invoking emotional responses – it’s down to creativity and innovation, with the help of alternative types of content (e.g. competitions, viral videos) to those used traditionally in B2B marketing.

3. Follow the crowd

Another clear challenge in the transition to B2B2C marketing is ‘where’ to target your audience. It’s far too simplistic to think that BuzzFeed and Facebook just need to be added to the mix. They’ll also be used differently. For instance, in consumer marketing, social channels may entirely replace face-to-face interactions – something that’s rare in B2B.

Furthermore, user expectations in each medium differ – the same person may use social media at work to inform them, yet expect it to entertain them when at home.

Fortunately, there are similarities between B2B and consumer buyers – both typically start their purchase process through a Google search, and increasingly B2B buyers rely on the types of social recommendations and online communities that have been influencing consumer buyers for years.

4.Re-evaluate your supplier relationships

Back to my earlier point about hiring help – joking aside, you probably already have firmly established relationships with a wide range of suppliers, from PR to SEO and digital marketing agencies, to name but a few.

And while it’s great to work with the people you know and trust, when embarking on B2B2C activities for the first time it’s critical to evaluate whether your existing suppliers are up to the job or you need to hire in additional help.

If they don’t already have consumer marketing experience, some will make the transition more easily than others – depending on how much they already focus on end-users and the type of agency they are. For instance, an SEO agency can probably adapt more easily than a PR agency, where press contacts are key. A digital marketing agency may similarly struggle if they don’t have the creative resources in-house to invoke the emotion so necessary in consumer campaigns.

Conclusion

Adopting a B2B2C model can be daunting. However, it’s not rocket science and following these steps should ease your transition.

A change of approach is often required; from reviewing your positioning through to proposition development, visual language and tactical go-to-market plan. The best results are often derived from focusing on the key benefits to individuals and ‘tickling’ the basic human instincts of reasoning (logos), trust (ethos) and emotional responses (pathos). Finally, making sure you have internal resources, partners and suppliers with the right experience will be invaluable.

Given the increasing power the digital revolution has brought to end-users in the B2B buying process, many B2B companies are already adopting this focus on the individual end-user, and not just buyers.

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