How to Move From B2C to B2B Marketing

Studies show that global business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce sales will reach over USD 6.6 trillion by 2020 and it will surpass the business-to-consumer (B2C) sales valued at USD 3.2 trillion by 2020. There is absolutely no doubt that the opportunity to create an impact in B2B marketing is large and will pay well as a career.

There’s a common misconception that most B2B products and services do not need much marketing. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Marketing is a key piece of the puzzle that will get people excited about and interested in your product and buy it. When people first enter B2B marketing, they dive headfirst with the consumer marketing model. This tends to be the point of failure in transition to B2B marketers’ thinking.

The most common mistake one can make is to approach B2B marketing with a staunch, unbending B2C primary mindset. You must be open to learning quickly on the job and adapting to the new situation. The difference between B2C and B2B marketing is quite significant, and it could take you a couple of months to rewire your mentality. As a B2C marketer, you bring your own set of skills and ideas to the table. You are armed with the basics of marketing and this will benefit you in the long run.

B2B marketing is more complex than B2C marketing due to the following reasons:

• B2B relationships take longer to cultivate than the transient B2C relationships.
• Collective decision making happens with B2B transactions. There are several stakeholders involved in making buying decisions, and you’ll have to invest resources into building relationships with these stakeholders through account management.
• The length of the buying cycle is a lot longer in B2B transactions. There are a larger number of interactions, processes, and even red tape involved in closing a B2B deal.
• In a B2B setting, companies often rely on referrals and consultations prior to making a purchase. Even when they want to make a repeat purchase, the company will have to go through a process of further consulting, auditing, and reviewing.

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The Sales Process

The sales process is another factor that differentiates B2B and B2C. How you sell an everyday use product to a consumer will differ widely from how you sell office supplies to a company.

In a B2C arrangement, transactions are usually simple – it is as easy as ordering a McSpicy Meal at McDonald's or buying a book on Amazon using your credit card.

Transactions between businesses, however, occur over the span of weeks, months and even years. Contracts are involved. A good deal of time and effort is spent on both parties negotiating the terms of the contract, and eventually settling on middle ground, then releasing formal purchase orders.

Payment methods also differ. In a B2C scenario, transactions are one-off; customers swipe or tap their cards and are on their merry way. In B2B, payments are released fully or partially based on negotiated commercial terms based on the work that is completed. One-time payments are rare in B2B situations. In most cases, payments occur over a period, usually over a few months, depending on the financial structure of the company you are dealing with.

The Relationship Between B2B Sales and Marketing

In B2C transactions, the split of marketing and sales roles is relatively simple - marketing teams generate excitement about the product, whereas the sales team handle distribution to make it available on the shelf or online, where buyers can find them easily. Sales volumes are seen on a run rate basis.

With B2B, however, the volume of transactions is smaller, the value of each sale is higher, and the buying process is multi-stage and time-consuming. The marketing team is primarily tasked to get the potential consumers excited, interested, and ready to talk to the sales teams. As the actual negotiations and wrapping up of MOUs are still handled by the sales team, it’s vital to keep them involved.

With the widespread use of digital marketing, information about the product can be researched online; purchasing companies no longer rely on sales representatives to provide information. Instead, a salesperson’s role has evolved to being that of a trusted advisor who helps companies make the right decision and help them make full use of their investment.

Marketing is all about figuring out the needs of your target audience before anything else. First, you’ll have to define who your target audience is. Then, you need to figure out what your potential consumers are looking for. Understand how your product can solve their problems. You’ll also need to make sure that you communicate the value of your offering coherently. Ensure that the messaging around your product is clear and it is available when and where they like to consume it.

To build your B2B marketing strategy and support the sales revenue goals, you’ll need to gather data and conduct substantial analytics in several areas. Here are some questions to consider:

• Which organisations you should target for your products and services?
• How much do you know about these organisations – firmographics?
• Who are the key stakeholders who make or influence buying decisions?

The Role of Brand in B2B

How brands hook their consumers isn’t a secret. Typical B2C brands have massive outreach in traditional media, however the engagement with customers is relatively transient, therefore you invest little thinking into what happens after the sale. There is less at stake between you and your consumer once they’ve made the purchase. Whether or not your customer returns for future purchases depends almost solely on the quality of your product and frequency of consumption.

B2B relationships are often cultivated over time. B2B buyers want to buy from organisations and even cultures that they relate to and trust. Most cases, the company is the brand, unlike multiple brands under a corporate brand such as with B2C companies.

The role of brand in B2B can never be stated enough. These are long term engagements with lifetime relationships in most cases, therefore you need to constantly work on nurturing trust and credibility at the core of how you run the business.

You can promote your B2B brand by:

• Understanding the market opportunity, addressable market, competitive landscape and thereby locating the sweet spot for your offering.
• Mapping the ‘money journey’ - fleshing out your customer’s decision-making process, the people who are involved, their roles and personas.
• Developing your messages in line with the maturity of your category, the stage of buying, and the needs of the persona you are talking to.
• Engaging top tier media, analysts, and influencers to amplify your company and its offerings on all the right channels
• Providing a great experience on your company website. As this is the first impression people will have about your company, make sure you’re showcasing the right content, that it’s SEO-friendly, and customised by geography or language if necessary.
• Being present on industry thought leadership platforms to share your company’s vision and position to boost credibility.
• Connecting and engaging with your audience on relevant social media channels.

As you can see, building a strong B2B brand involves several moving parts. Start by focusing on communication channels that allow you to speak to your audience, and thereby gain their attention & mindshare.

Channels

When it comes to choosing channels through which you will communicate with your audience, go for a big impact. Which waterholes do your audience frequent – digital or physical, most likely a mixture of both – phygital. Since your audience is limited and targeted, be very careful to focus on the right channels to make sure you’re not leaking precious time and resources in the process. Here are some channels you can consider amplifying your brand.

Physical:

• Trade and industry conferences. Acquiring a booth in relevant forums will allow you to access the prospects, channel and influencers that you want to reach. You could go about this in two ways: either solo, or with partners. For example, SAP may work with other partners who sell the product, or you may partner with Accenture to reach their audience.
• Outdoor Billboards in targeted spaces such as airports or lounges.
• Print Publications such as business newspapers and magazines
• Experiential events at concerts, sporting events, theatres.

Digital:

• Website. When people want to know something, the first thing they’re likely to do is to hop on the internet and look you up. Use your website to showcase your unique value proposition and offer key information a customer might need
• Relevant business portals such as TED, Fast Company, WSJ, and BusinessWeek
• Professional social media presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium
• Email campaigns
• Webinars and virtual events

Based on your audience, resources, and your product, you can choose the channels that will create the most impact and invest your effort on those to drive awareness.

Demand Generation

Creating demand for the company’s products and offerings is a key part of B2B marketing. Potential client companies want to know how your product will help them drive profits. Your B2B clients are far more likely to respond to ads that draw attention to the functional value of your product. They want details on how partnering with you will help them achieve their business goals for years to come.

When determining the quality of an inbound lead, your company must be familiar with a set of criteria. This will enable you to accurately identify, pursue, and potentially close MOUs and deals. Not only will you be able to identify the key people involved, you’ll also have a better gauge of the budget that a potential buyer has.

You should look at where the target organisation currently is, with respect to their budget timeline. This determines when the company is likely to spend and enables your team to ramp up efforts to sell your product at key business periods in the financial year.

One popular approach is to offer free product trials for your target organisations. This way, they will experience the product first-hand and see for themselves how it can solve their challenges. Here, too, testimonials from reputable clients with notable brands would help win them over.

Lastly, the final group of consumers that you must capitalise on is the one that has already bought from you. You have their information, so with them your channel is actual engagement. You don't need to go to the outside channels, but rather focus on building a good rapport and showing the full value they can benefit with your product. Then you can veer the conversation towards renewals and how both companies can continue benefiting from this partnership. You need to constantly grow the variety and quality of your product to make those companies long term customers and partners.

Tools for B2B Marketers

Don’t underestimate the value of buying software or technology that will help you create smart analytics.

Invest in a good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, such as HubSpot CRM, Zoho CRM and Freshsales. An effective CRM tool will help you track interactions with your consumers, and assist in managing business contacts, employees, clients, contract wins, and sales leads.

The second set of tools are the ones that manage the sentiment and engagement of clients. Put simply, these tools handle social sentiment analysis and help you to publish information, track engagement from your user base.

IP based customer targeting solutions such as DemandBase are the third set of tools, which can help you estimate the interest of potential customers based on the interactions and the quality of these interactions online. You would be able to know more about the individual, their company, their industry and other information that can mature into a qualified lead, opportunity and sales engagement.

ROI for B2B Marketing

In all businesses, the optimal aim is to attain positive ROI, however it can be challenging compared to B2C.

There are some factors that drive high ROI for marketing in B2B companies. Firstly, there needs to be a clear alignment between the sales and marketing teams. This begins with a candid dialogue around expectations, as well as how marketing will support revenue attainment for the company. Secondly, it’s the ability to set realistic goals that are grounded in reality. Are your goals sizing up the addressable market for your offering in a realistic way? Lastly, there’s execution excellence. Your big picture strategy should be broken down into a tangible step-by-step plan and the willingness to see it through to the last mile.

In terms on measuring ROI for marketing, here are a few metrics to track:

• Marketing sourced pipeline: these are incremental leads generated through marketing programs
• Marketing influenced pipeline: these are existing sales opportunities that marketing did not create, but marketing has contributed in moving them towards revenue realisation
• Investment to pipeline ratio: this is the ratio of the value of the sales pipeline built versus the investment in the marketing programme e.g. 1:20 or 1:30
• Investment to revenue ratio: this is the ratio of revenue realised from the pipeline that was sourced and influenced by marketing at the end of the fiscal period e.g. 1:5 or 1:10

However, when measuring ROI, there are a few missteps you might make as a marketer. The first is not aligning your marketing strategy with the larger business objectives of the company. If you don’t understand what is expected of you, it will be harder for you to deliver the results that the company needs. This includes setting unique KPIs to measure brand awareness and demand. If you fail to do this from the very beginning, you might find yourself in hot water later on. Also, make sure that you’re setting clear quantitative targets. Not only will hitting these help you celebrate your success along the way, you’ll also be able to assess what has worked objectively at the end. If you don’t set clear goals and monitor progress, you will have to resort to assessing success very subjectively, which will only lead to frustration for everyone involved.

Mistakes B2B Marketers Make

The most basic mistake is to not define the outcome up front. As mentioned previously, B2B marketers need to know where they are headed, and be constantly reminded of it. There needs to be clearly defined goals that everyone understands.

One way you could aid your team in ensuring that they stay on course is to work backwards. You should start withdrawing the boundaries for your targets, identifying the companies, and then going for specific events or networking sessions or conferences that would enable you to cover the widest range of targets in a single outing. When this is done effectively and thoroughly, you will find that the process goes smoothly – you’ll be able to gain value from your efforts and proceed with the next steps of your marketing process more effectively.

Next, many marketers make the mistake of not aligning marketing and sales together. Marketers fail to ensure that marketing and sales are parallel and will not clash. As a result, neither function complements, let alone supports the other. This critical process is often overlooked and misunderstood. This causes multiple issues that could be costly to rectify in the future.

Lastly, don’t make the mistake of assuming there’s no scope for creativity. If you don't experiment, you’ll go down the beaten path and get drowned out in the crowd. And I think the opportunity to do things creatively and experiment is as much in B2B as in B2C.

1. Align with the Revenue Engine in planning and execution

Marketing’s purpose is to help deliver goals for business, so make sure you get things right from the beginning. Understand the addressable market, frame your current business challenges and opportunities, and what is expected of your team. This will help you build your strategy and plan.

2. Ensure that ROI is accurately defined

In addition to defining your ROI clearly, make sure your business stakeholders also agree on how you will measure success. Based on the resources you invest, you’ll need to put parameters in place that will help you track qualitative and quantitative performance, track milestones, and make adjustments along the way.

3. Assess if the right talent is in place

List the skills and experiences needed to deliver on your vision and develop a hiring plan for gaps in the team. Prioritise bringing together people with a complementary set of skills and a can-do attitude to ensure sustained success without getting to burnout situations.