B2B Marketing vs B2C Marketing
When marketing to an audience, you need to distinguish whether your product or service provides to other businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C). Sometimes, you will find that you serve the B2B market, as well as the B2C market, at the same time.
However, you will usually market to either one or the other. In this article, you will learn the differences between marketing strategies when targeting B2B and B2C markets.
Developing Your Brand
Main B2B Goal: Prioritise Relationships
Relationship building is an integral part of brand development within B2B marketing. The presentation and delivery of your product and/or service needs to stay consistent to get your brand taken seriously.
When it comes to your B2B search marketing, showing where you position your business in the market, and allowing a spotlight on its personality, will help drive brand awareness, as well as lead generation.
You must know who your main target audience is, and thus be flexible with your branding so that it appeals to your audience. This will help to drive brand awareness and raise your lead generation.
B2C Main Goal: Focus on Your Message
Branding is so important in B2C marketing as it allows you to:
- Deliver your message
- Confirm credibility
- Motivate consumers to purchase
- Create loyalty with your customers
- Connect with your customers on an emotional level
It is the main focus of B2C marketing, as your customers need to have a good experience when dealing with your brand, from purchasing products and services to connecting with customer support.
Your message needs to be credible, and your copy needs to spark enthusiasm and be motivational, so that it speaks to your customers, and makes them want to come back for more!
Customer Relationships
B2B Main Goal: Create Personal Relationships
When dealing with B2B marketing, you are appealing to other businesses. In the best instances, you hope that these businesses use your services or products for a very long time. Ideally, you want to create personal relationships with key players in your business’ industry.
It’s important to connect with the heads of sales, as well as CFOs, COOs, CEOs, as well as heads of marketing.
It is also important for B2B businesses to generate leads, and through repeat and referral business, deep personal relationships can be created. What matters here is that you prove to other businesses that your brand can be trusted, show what ethics and morals drive your business, as well as what your business practices are.
This is where reviews come in. Review platforms like Trustpilot and G2Crowd are a great place for companies to visit and see honest reviews of your business. Therefore, successful personal relationships within the businesses you target can honestly make or break your business.
B2C Main Goal: Focus on High Quality Transactional Relationships
What matters in B2C marketing is to get consumers to buy your products and/or use your services. It’s all about consumers being presented with something they want, that is of high quality, and the ability to purchase it as quickly as possible without too many bumps along the road.
It helps to have many positive reviews, as consumers rely on these, especially when purchasing from a brand they are unfamiliar with.
Once a consumer becomes a customer, you can always send them a small form to fill in about the product and their experience, and in return, they will receive a free eBook or discount for their next purchase.
Target the Correct Audience
B2B Main Goal: Find Out Who Your Niche Market Is
When dealing with B2B marketing, you need to focus on who your business is speaking to and delivering to the most. In other words, you need to know the demographic of your target audience. So, how is this done? Through data analysis.
A great tool to use is Google Analytics, as well as SEO keyword research. It’s important to go to Google’s SERP and see what keywords people are using there. You will know who your target audience is once you have analyzed your SERP, researched keywords and looked through Google Analytics. At least, you will have a clearer idea.
With the target audience in mind, you can now market correctly with ads containing the most appealing SEO keywords that will allow you to create a lead generation strategy.
Lead generation is one of the main goals for B2B marketing. Therefore, what matters most, is to build a top-of-funnel prospect list, and follow that up with a specific marketing and lead generation marketing funnel that will lead you to the specific audience you want for your business to succeed.
B2C Main Goal: Follow the Marketing Funnel
As you can imagine, unless a B2C brand is high-end, for example, Louis Vuitton, the target market for B2C is not as niche as B2B. In other words, more people will be presented with your brand and will have the opportunity to buy or use your products and/or services.
B2C search marketers focus on following the marketing funnel to cast a net over potential customers.
Right at the top of this funnel, ads that address pain points, affect emotions and aim at product-driven purchases can attract a wide audience of high-quality leads. An analysis of these top-of-funnel leads can assist in the creation of a warm lead list. From this, remarketing efforts can be applied to turn these leads into conversions.
In B2C marketing, it is imperative to apply CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) tactics that are as effective as possible. These include creating compelling copy, as well as quality landing pages that are easy to navigate, and the implementation of conversion funnels that work.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a vast difference between B2B and B2C marketing. Let’s not forget that the correct ad copy makes a huge difference, as well as a look into the differences between the decision-making process.
Whether your business is aimed at the B2B or B2C market, contact one of our expert Digital Strategists today, and they will help push your business forward, and increase your brand awareness!
