Without a doubt, marketing can be a ruthless business, with competition stirring up high in all directions. Business to business marketing is not entirely a different territory than a business to customer marketing yet marketing to the business is somewhat different than marketing to consumers. On the counter, it may seem like that one is more logical while the later one is more emotional. The sooner you learn this the better.
Marketing requires the marketer to know and understand the customers intimately and continually fight for their attention and allegiance. But it could be cutthroat with every turn you take, there is always someone waiting to take away your customers. Among all these, understanding the difference between marketing to business and marketing to the consumer world is the key.
The key divergence between these two market domains, holds the key card, owning the power make or break your results. It does not merely depend on using social platforms like LinkedIn or Facebook to further enhance the impact of the business. But it is more about how and what techniques you use to target potential customers. It has more to deal with determining what works versus what doesn’t.
First, let’s discuss what contradictions actually stands between B2B marketing and B2C marketing? And what could be done in order to dominate those?
Undertaking the Concept of B2B Marketing:
B2B marketing directly refers to the term business to business marketing. When a company or business relating to your industry, offers to provide services to you or become your partner in offering a complete package to the customers, is B2B marketing. It is done to sell or provide services from one to another business, instead of directly selling to the consumers. The focus in B2B marketing is much more in-depth on making logical sense than connecting through emotions. It revolves around the quality, pricing, brand awareness, and what you have to offer.
B2B marketing usually follows the trends that circulate around the concepts to augment productivity, having unique attributes and selling this fact to targeted business, also emphasizing the points to save money and cost. Based on these pillars any business can construct a strong standing B2B marketing strategy.
Undertaking the Concept of B2C Marketing:
Contrary to the concept of B2B marketing, B2C is the phenomenon where marketing techniques are applied to consumers directly by the businesses. In particular, when a clothing brand tries to sell their designs via sales, or when a food franchise offers special meals for a special occasion, that would be B2C marketing.
Unlike the significant pillar of logic in B2B marketing, B2C marketing is more inclined towards emotions. Customers are much more emotional when making a decision that business. In the light of the prior statement, it focuses on creating content for creating brand awareness, building an emotional relationship with customers through effective taglines or ads, and selling based on the probable profits from the service or products.
Advertising is to B2C is what hammer is to Thor, the most significant asset and the most essential part of B2C marketing. As per the studies, customers are more prone to buy products or services with ads, short and snappy that are affirmative to catch the attention of customers and stay fresh in their minds.
Consumers unlike business do not invest enough time to read or understand the message broadcasted to them; instead, they look for benefits and reasons for purchase handed to them on a silver platter. Successful B2C marketing does not require the targeted customers to research about the brand.
Profound Differences between the Two Marketing Domains:
The entire debate regarding the dissimilarities of B2B and B2C marketing is dependent on what procedures are applicable and practical to hook the targeted audience with the brand or business. The way you can approach the customer is different in every aspect when compared to the mechanism of approaching business. Whether the sale will be a success or not id directly proportional to the series of steps taken in the right direction.
Clear as water, B2B audience makes the purchase decision based on entirely different reasons than the B2C customers. Targeted B2B customers are more prone to look for the facts like efficiency and expertise of the product or services in question, whereas the B2C customers will be inclined towards finding a good deal that involves value for fun.
This is why the objective is concluded that B2B marketing is based on logical techniques. For B2C marketers, emphasizing customers with their emotions is more important.
Industry Jargons are relevant or not?
This one is easy; B2B marketers are observed to be closely following industry jargon in their content in marketing methods. Rightfully though, it makes a positive impression on the targeted business audience, allowing them the chance to invest the trust as it shows, you know what you are talking about.
On the contrary, when dealing along the line of B2C marketing, it is advised to stay apart from using famous industry jargon. Not only the B2C customers are unable to understand them, but they are also irrelevant to them. On coming across such jargons, customers will be quick to drop the brand and move ahead towards a more relatable offer.
Marketing through Content
For content to help translate potential customers into sales, it is vital to understand the essence of the market niche. For B2B websites or marketplaces, it is considered positive to have lengthy content filled with industry jargon that will effectively answer all the frequently asked questions along with defining details about the offer.
On the other hand, B2C content should be lesser in length and more focused on humor, it should be attractive enough to grab the attention of readers and keep the brands name in their mind, an unforgettable tagline like “Gillette – The Best a Man Can Get” and “MasterCard – There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard”, etc.
Building Brand Relationships
For almost all buyers and consumers, the force that drives purchase decision not the relationship with the brand but is based on the immediate fulfillment of their requirements and demands. Not to contradict the fact that customers are brand loyal, but while purchasing they tend to look at the best and most cost-effective offer than thinking about the previously preferred brand.
Divergent to this, businesses usually seek to develop long-lasting relationships rather than having a one-time encounter. Businesses looking to find a reliable partner and then stick with them for business purchases, eliminating the time wastage required to find new vendors every time.
Who Concludes the Buying decision?
B2C decision is said to be made single-handedly, differing from the number of multiple people involved a B2B purchasing. To further elaborate the fact, B2C buying involves a single person so the decision to buy or not is also decided by either just one person or a small group of people like friends/ family.
When it comes to making a B2B decision, there a whole team of expert businessmen with a considerable number of chain of command to weigh in. For a business to be able to get a sale done will have to impress the entire sales team. B2B decisions are collective and done after a long process of though evaluation but once B2B connects with a supplier, it is for the long run as compared to B2C.
Is there any Homogeneity between B2B and B2C Marketing?
Despite all the differences between B2B and B2C being highlighted time and again, they have more in common than you might think. Everyone in this field is familiar with the standard argument that B2B and B2C are rivals to each other. But is this statement entirely true?
A vast chunk of marketers believe that there is no personal emotion involved in B2B marking decisions, as discussed in the article before and to a wider extent it is applicable. Still, decision making in businesses also comes down to the gut choice. Recommendations, advertisement, and testimonials could influence this gut feeling. Though the direct emotional connection is not involved here, yet the opinion of B2B customers could be shaped just like the preference of B2C customers.
The trend of shopping behavior between B2B customers and B2C customers is also the same. Our digital savvy buyers, whether they belong with B2B or B2C community, both prefer to shop via online marketplaces. Initially, the trend for online shopping was adopted by B2C industry in the form of Amazon or eBay. But soon with the technological advancement, B2B has also owned up to the internet market as we witnessed with the launch of B2B giants like Alibaba.com that altered the way for business to business transactions, followed by various similar platforms like TradeWheel.com, DHgate.com, and etc. In the current atmosphere, End to End transactions happens undividedly through effective B2B platforms.
To Conclude:
B2B marketing and B2C marketing are just as similar as they are different. Though their differences are highlighted more often than they are thought to be the same and both have different approaches to score a sale, still, they have a lot of things that they can learn from one another.
