Tips from the Other Side: 5 B2C Strategies to Incorporate in Your B2B Marketing Plan

For most, B2B and B2C marketing are starkly different, with the former normally characterized by a more professional serious tone and a smaller target audience. While B2B is supposed to appeal to the customer’s business side, B2C is often known as the more personable, brand-orientated, and fun of the marketing pair. However, despite their differences, both methods heavily rely on collected data to understand customer expectations. Consequently, there are a handful of beneficial B2C strategies that can be properly translated into your B2C campaigns, such as…

1. Emphasizing reviews and case studies – When checking out a new brand, the average customer goes straight to the reviews section to validate a brand’s trustworthiness. As a result, nearly 79% of customers treat reviews as personal recommendations from friends and family. While it may be difficult to gather reviews from every B2B buyer, full-length case studies serve a similar purpose by allowing potential clients to see how you’ve interacted with customers in the past.
2. Leveraging emotion – While a professional tone is always appropriate, evoking emotion helps cement your messaging while building relationships with customers. Research found in a Think with Google study shows that B2B clients actually have a stronger emotional tie to sellers due to the amount of effort and money they put into it compared to B2C transactions, which are usually low-cost and affect only one person. Boosting engagement via social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter is a consistent way to grow your brand persona while interacting straight with potential clients in an environment they know.
3. Creating loyalty programs – Loyalty programs successfully draw clients back with the promise of a reward, further boosting engagement. In the B2B setting, this may look like a partner program, or a trade-in offer for unused/outdated products. Studies indicate that nearly 84% of customers are more apt to pick companies with loyalty programs since it makes them feel valued and saves money in the long run.
4. Displaying product/solution recommendations – B2C assets have acclimated customers to expecting website and homepage layouts to follow a similar structure. This means they will naturally expect to see a featured product or solution on your site as is the case with B2C retailers and Amazon sellers. Intelligent site design can leverage previous customer expectations and eye movement to place certain products more prominently before your audience.
5. Facilitating e-commerce – After a whole year of increasing online transactions, three fourths of B2B buyers still prefer online sales and interactions over in-person meetings. To bridge the gap between digital and personable service, B2B companies are encouraged to maximize interactivity online, whether it be through a live webinar or through an immersive website. Consequently, videoconferencing and live chats have been up by 41% and 23% respectively and are used to close deals of over $500K when providing fast and knowledgeable remote assistance.

Above all, engaging content remains king for both B2C and B2B marketing strategies. As the lines between supply chains blur all the more, pairing your team with tested creativity enables you to draw strengths from both sides and overcome the obstacles of mass digitization, which are sure to revolutionize businesses again and again.