If you’ve never encountered it before, you might wonder what the acronym “B2B” means — but don’t worry, it’s simple. B2B means business to business. It’s the commercial space where one business or company sells products and services to another business or company, instead of to individual consumers.
B2B marketing is the way businesses generate demand from other businesses for their products and services. Just like B2C (business to consumer) marketing, B2B marketing includes many types of content, and it can take place across multiple online and offline channels. But there are some key differences between B2B and B2C marketing.
How is B2B marketing different from B2C marketing?
The main difference between B2C and B2B marketing is right in the names: it’s the audience.
The audience for B2C marketing is people who are buying products or services for themselves, their friends, and their families directly from a company. Many of us experience B2C marketing every day, as we receive emails or see social media posts with personalized offers from our favorite brands.
The makeup of this committee depends on the product or service being purchased. For example, if the B2B business is marketing office furniture, the buying committee may include office planners, facilities staff, and operations personnel. If the product is marketing software, the committee may feature representatives from marketing, sales, information technology, and finance.
Your B2B marketing approach will look different based on industry, company size, and other factors. For instance, there are different B2B marketing strategies for engaging with buying committees at small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) versus large (enterprise) companies.
The marketing funnel
The process of B2B marketing is often described as the marketing funnel. In the marketing funnel, demand generation efforts lead to awareness. After awareness, lead generation results in an audience displaying interest and consideration. B2B marketers then shift from lead generation to lead nurturing, during which they share information to help shape the buying committee’s intent to purchase. The buying committee then spends time in a period of evaluation before deciding to purchase. Ideally, the process continues as the business grows their relationship with the buyer over time
Lifecycle marketing
Lifecycle marketing includes the marketing funnel, but goes beyond it. It’s about engaging with an audience as they move from prospects to customers and finally become advocates for the business. Through lifecycle marketing, the marketing funnel is able to repeat over and over, as advocates introduce new prospects to the business.
Demand generation and lead generation
Demand generation is a marketing strategy that uses content to build awareness around a product, service, or brand. This is accomplished through inbound marketing, in which marketers create helpful content designed to solve key problems for your audience and drive interest in what you have to offer. Examples of demand generation content include informational articles, blog posts, social media posts, podcasts, videos, and more.
This is different from outbound marketing, in which marketers directly engage potential customers through third-party avenues such as billboards, ads in magazines, on the radio, and on TV, and door-to-door sales and cold-calling.
Lead generation is a demand generation tactic used to attract potential customers who have shared some of their information with a business. The value of lead generation is in driving leads to sales. It’s something marketing and sales teams need to collaborate on in order to target leads that have the most potential to generate new business.
In B2B marketing, an account is a group of leads from the customer company, most of whom are likely on the buying committee. One of the most effective demand generation strategies is account-based marketing (ABM).
Lead nurturing and lead management
Lead nurturing is the process of engaging with leads as they consider a business’ products or services and sharing information to influence their intent to purchase. It’s a time when a B2B marketing team should work with sales to showcase everything their business has to offer, and build deeper connections with leads. Lead nurturing is a tactic that’s often used in demand generation.
Lead management is similar to demand generation and usually refers to the overall process of managing leads from generation to purchase and beyond. It includes lead generation, lead nurturing, lead routing to sales, follow-up after purchase, and more.
How marketing and sales work together in B2B
In the B2B space, marketing and sales interact with leads in different ways — which means it’s essential for these departments to work together. With their powers combined, marketing and sales can create more seamless experiences for prospects and customers and share their unique expertise to target the best leads as a united front.
A great way to start is for marketing and sales to align and collaborate on the account selection process. They can use targeted ABM strategies to pursue accounts with the strongest buying signals, engage those leads with personalized content, and leverage technology to maintain a shared view of how leads are engaging with content and progressing through the marketing funnel. This ensures that every lead receives the right message at the right time.
Navigating the Changing B2B Marketing Landscape
B2B marketing today looks nothing like it did in the past. While the fundamental intent remains the same, digital transformation has changed the way it happens — and things are still changing.
As customers’ expectations change in response to the great experiences they’re having with their favorite consumer brands, B2B businesses have the opportunity to capitalize on what’s working in that space and put their own spin on it. The biggest area of opportunity is in building excellent customer experiences.
What are B2B buyers’ expectations today?
The answer is simple: Customers expect seamless, personalized experiences across every digital channel and in every stage of the buying lifecycle. According to the Salesforce State of Marketing Report, 69% of customers expect connected experiences, and in the Salesforce State of the Connected Customer Report, 76% of customers said they expect consistent interactions across business departments.
But the process for creating these experiences is anything but easy. In particular, 85% of business buyers place the same emphasis on flawless engagement as they do on product quality. These buyers expect businesses to:
- personalize messaging and offers based on an in-depth understanding of their unique needs and pain points.
- Make it easy to engage at any time, on any channel, and empathize with what they may be going through personally due to what’s happening in the world
- anticipate their future needs
These expectations are non-negotiable for the all-digital customer.
What does the all-digital customer mean for B2B marketing?
In the B2B space, the all-digital customer is actually a buying committee of decision makers that engages with a B2B business exclusively online.
For B2B marketers seeking to engage these buyers, this means sharing marketing content on each buyer’s preferred channels, making content accessible from any device, and being available at any time.
This is a daunting task for a B2B marketing team to attempt with even one account, let alone multiple. That’s why top B2B marketers use data, artificial intelligence (AI), and marketing automation to identify accounts with the highest value for their business and deliver uniquely personalized experiences to each buyer on the account.
How can B2B marketing use data, artificial intelligence, and marketing automation?
Gathering data and using it with AI and marketing automation is the key to delivering personalized experiences that help buyers feel known and understood. With the right technology, a B2B business can get a complete view of their accounts and buying committees, down to each individual lead.
All this information can be filtered by AI to deliver insights that inform the best marketing content and strategies for each account and buyer. Then, marketing automation can help send the right messages to each buyer at the right time on their preferred channels.
The days of siloed data stacks are over. By aligning around a shared source of account data, teams across marketing, sales, and customer service can easily align on account selection, targeting, and nurturing. Good news: 63% of marketers use the same CRM system as sales and service.
Source: Salesforce
