Business: 3 Key Difference Between B2B and B2C Content Marketing

Although you still sell to a person, there are some differences between marketing to businesses and marketing to individual customers. Both business-to-business (B2B) and end-customers buy to satisfy their needs; however, the specific needs and nature of the purchase process differ. The success of your content marketing strategy depends heavily on understanding these differences and using them in your favor.




This article explains how to build an effective digital content marketing strategy by highlighting the 3 key differences in selling to B2B and B2C. 


3 Key Differences in B2B vs. B2C Content Marketing
  

Logic vs. Emotions

B2B buyers are individuals purchasing on behalf of organizations. They seek efficiency and expertise and as such, their purchasing decisions tend to be more logical and task-oriented. B2B buying decisions are also often affected by how the decision impacts individual buyer’s career path. B2C customers are single individuals who buy products or services for personal use and, most importantly usually pay for their own transactions. Individual customers seek deals and entertainment and are often driven by emotional factors such as hunger, desire or status.




Content Marketing Tips: The B2B content likes data. It should primarily inform and educate. Business audience requires deeper technical knowledge. Your B2B content should focus on product-specific features and explain how the product/services can help your customer to save time, money and/or make more money. B2C content should inspire and address emotional satisfaction of obtaining the product. Language-wide, while industry jargon works to a great effect with the B2B audience, B2C public would generally resonate better to a more conversational tone of voice with fewer industry buzzwords.

  

Longer vs. speedy decision-making process

Business buyers generally spend more money than B2C buyers. B2B transactions are often completed after a long, multi-stages sales process that involves multiple decision makers. On the contrary, B2C transactions tend to have a much lower “ticket value” and consequently take less consideration. A B2C buying cycle can be as short as a few minutes depending on the specific product. Often, but not always, a B2C purchase is a single-step, one-off transaction with a single decision maker involved.

Content Marketing Tips: B2B audience is relation driven. They need the ability to build a personal trust-based relationship with your brand and crave for information and fine details about your product/service. Your typical B2B readers are also far more likely to read the small print than a B2C customer.

Successful B2B marketing copy should fulfill a series of purposes: deliver the necessary information to the buyer, reinforce your position as a trustworthy and reliable business partner and promote your leadership in the field. As a B2B marketer be prepared to invest your time and efforts in nurturing long relationships with your target audience.

A B2C consumer following your brand isn’t necessarily seeking to develop a long and close relationship with your business (except for the most avid fans) and this completely alters your content message priorities. With B2C, the goal of content marketing is to get consumers to buy the product immediately. Brand identity is created through repetition and compelling imagery rather than data and personal relationship. Consequently, a minimalist marketing message – be it on social media or on the website - with almost no information but stunning visuals will work to a great effect with B2C, while it won’t do the same job in the B2B space.

Smaller lead pool vs. large target market

B2B generally involves a smaller and more defined pool of prospects than B2C. For instance, Coca-Cola has a much wider target market than a software house with expertise in financial and automotive industries. The number of companies the software house can market their services to is much more limited and probably also strongly influenced by time zone it operates in.

Content Marketing Tips: While B2B marketers have a more limited scope of promotional channels than B2C, they advantage consists in knowing very precisely to whom the content is addressed to and they should tailor it accordingly. Moreover, B2B content creators should use highly targeted B2B specific distribution channels such as LinkedIn’s Sponsored Updates to get their messages right in front of laser focused business buyers. However, with the imperative of targeted content distribution in mind, business marketers should not disregard potential engagement opportunities offered by other social media networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Social media are increasingly blurring the line between B2C and B2B buyers who openly express their aspirations and their needs through social networks. Most importantly, however, all buyers begin purchases by researching products and services online. Often, by the time business decision makers reach out to sales professionals, they have already completed they shortlist if not made up a decision. Social media channels create opportunities for both B2B and B2C marketers to jump into this gap, find potential customers, listen to their needs and relate to them ahead of the competition.

If you find this article beneficial, give it a thumb up! What is your experience with creating content for B2C vs. B2B brands? Please share your comments below.