B2B Marketing Shouldn't Be Purely Logical, But...

There has been a growing body of published work in recent years created to convince B2B marketers to appeal more to emotions instead of just reason. Such conclusions are remedial, and more than a little insulting. It’s not that B2B marketers don’t know that feelings are absolutely critical to decisionmaking. One does not become a successful marketer without a working knowledge of human psychology.

But here’s the thing. Many of these published works I just mentioned advocate that B2B businesses take a more B2C approach to marketing so that they can better appeal to the emotions. This sounds good, but it’s wrong, or not exactly right. It’s the right diagnosis, but the wrong medicine.

Follow this advice to the letter, and you’ll be toast. Because if a CTO recommends a million-dollar Cloud solution to the board while under obvious emotional influence, they’ll be toast. A B2B purchasing decision, and the process that directly leads to it, must seem rational (i.e., untriggered), because nobody involved can risk looking like a sucker.

Big money business decisions are expected to be sensible and logical, because business decisionmakers are expected to do what is best for the company, not what provides pleasure, or alleviates pain. And sorry, your marketing kung fu is not strong enough to change that expectation.

However, this does not entirely bind your hands. There are still plenty of things you can do to appeal to the non-rational-parts of the human psyche, you just can’t do it as obviously as you can in consumer marketing, and largely not within view of the board, except when you can.

The 3-Minute Video

Hollywood has trained us to find video content that lacks emotional appeal sterile and disengaging. This makes the short high-level video that explains what you’re selling to the board your big shot to appeal to their emotions in a more obvious fashion through content (the rest of the emotional heavy lifting should be left to the salesperson, which is one of the big reasons why they still matter).

If the video has some humor (use animation if the goal is humor since it can tickle our inner child if done right), show it right off the bat. It’ll put the board at ease, show that you care about their comfort, and demonstrate that you’re at ease yourself (i.e., you’re confident). If the video is more heroic, close with it. Leave the board feeling hopeful that they can be a hero if they buy from you.

Colors

A more stealthy way to influence the board (or any audience) is how you use colors. Yes, colors. You remember them? Or should I ask, you remember the ones besides white, black, blue, or gray? B2B businesses rely on these colors because they seem authoritative and soothing. Also because it helps the second and third tiers look more like the first tier. But I don’t necessarily think they’re the only way to go. And I definitely think their overuse in B2B makes us numb to them, thus nullifying any competitive advantage they might have.

And this is bad for more reasons that you might realize. A study from Motista found that B2B buyers often have trouble distinguishing the relative value of different solutions. Thus, selling value might work in a vacuum, but put your solution in direct comparison to two other solutions that are promising the same value, and it might not. Saying you boost conversions doesn't necessarily work if everyone else does. And if you also happen to look like everyone else, you could really be screwed, because a buyer in that instance might just go with the vendor who’s name they know, instead of the vendor that's imitating them.

If you look just like everyone else, you’re basically saying you’re a lemming. This is fine if you’re selling to other lemmings, but unless you’re a leader, the lemmings aren’t going to buy from you, which means that if someone does, they’re taking a risk, so you need to look like someone worth taking a risk on. In this case, looking like a challenger is better than looking like a follower. Acting obsequious (i.e., mirroring them) is what a follower brand does, not a challenger.

Try a less neutral color scheme in your assets that sticks out a little more, reflecting confidence in your abilities, in the same way that clothes and hair that are a little different (though not gaudy to the point of being distracting) reflect a confident artist or artisan. A challenger is, by definition, a rebel. Lean into it. You’ve got the goods. You don’t need to kiss the customer's ass to prove it. Ass-kissing degrades you. Rebels don’t follow all the rules.

And this is not just about confidence. Believe me, offer up something a little different, and the audience will appreciate it, even if they don't mean to. In a B2B environment, your audience is thirsty as hell, and originality is water.

I know this doesn’t reflect standard B2B logic, but think about it this way. It’s the job of the solution, the salespeople, your messaging, and your content to demonstrate that you understand the world your client lives in. If you think the color scheme is going to demonstrate this, you’re already toast. Standing out is better than fitting in. It makes you seem smart, and therefore will make your prospects feel smart by going with you (always a good approach).

Case Studies

Businesses have a tendency to view case studies the wrong way. The best case studies are not just storytelling, they’re story retelling. They’re confirmation of a story, or validation of it. Unless they’ve been following you for a while, typically a prospect has already consumed some sales materials already by the time they get to the case study, and that’s where the story has first been told. The job of the case study is to back it up. But this doesn’t always happen in reality, for a couple of reasons.

One, case studies are often written out in the regions, and the people there might have no idea what narrative HQ is using. And two, case studies are often a little old. The only study you have for the Model XYZ is for the version 4, and now you’re selling the version 5, for which the sales materials were supervised by a new marketing manager who wants to take things in a new direction.??

The goal with case studies is reassurance, a powerful emotion, so basically your job is here to read the prospect’s mind, and anticipate every question that they might have. The good news is, you control the questions, because you’ve set them up in whatever they read previously. Thus, if you answer them in the case study, it’ll make you seem in touch with them, perhaps more than you really are. Magic. Definitely an emotion.

Awareness

Remember the exact words I used earlier, “A B2B purchasing decision, and the process that directly leads to it, must seem rational.” But awareness is not really part of the purchasing decision, or what directly leads to it, and most of the board is never going to see that content anyway, so don’t be afraid to get a little more showy and emotional when it comes to awareness, especially since, after all, the goal is awareness, not sameness, which will help you stand out from all the branded styrofoam on LinkedIn.

Blogs

Blogs are often remixes of other people’s blogs, assembled by a writer who’s an expert bluffer but not really a subject matter expert. Thus, they tend to be dull and sterile, especially if they’re being approved by someone who’s largely evaluating it for SEO value. But blogs are supposed to be geek content, and if you can get a real subject matter expert to blog for you, you can geek out on all sorts of topics with a level of enthusiasm that the uninitiated might find odd. But enthusiasm is infectious. It can really inspire people to reach out, so use it now, so you can harvest later.

You Can Do A Lot With A Little

I know that all this might not seem like much, but think about it this way. The B2B marketing experience is usually quite deprived in terms of emotions, and this deprivation can make even the smallest emotional appeals or gestures seem more powerful than they otherwise would be. For example, think about that guy you saw back at the top of the page. Spock was a Vulcan, and Vulcans are logicians who control their emotions. One way they do this is by controlling their bodies. They have a very still body language, and a very calm & even way of speaking.

This makes any minor emotional expression, or even any minor physical expression that might indicate an emotion (even one too small to notice in a more demonstrative person), seem powerful. And smart B2B marketers know how to take advantage of a less-is-more situation like this. It’s not always necessary to fill a room with emotion through emphatic arm-waving. Sometimes a raised eyebrow will do.?