Business to business means people to people

B2C marketers get all the attention; their field of marketing is loud, sexy and extensively studied. Meanwhile, B2B marketers have long been seen as serious and in some instances, even boring and stuck-in-the-mud - B2B marketers don’t talk to people, they talk to businesses...

New research suggests that B2C and B2B are not as different as all that. And that comes down to the fact that B2B marketers are actually also talking to people. 

Historically the focus in B2B has largely been on lead generation. It has been very one-sided. But new research from Les Binet and Peter Field, commissioned by LinkedIn, suggests there is far more to B2B. Their research highlights brand building – surprise! – is just as important for B2B brands as it is for their flashier B2C siblings.

It’s time for B2B marketing to get some well-deserved attention. 

The six principles of B2B brand growth

B2C marketing has inspired books like “How Brands Grow” by Byron Sharp. This research and many other studies have focused on establishing ‘scientific laws’ of buying and marketing research – incontrovertible rules of success for brand building.

According to this article from The Drum, there are incontrovertible rules of success in B2B marketing as well. Binet and Field’s six principles of B2B brand growth are:

• BUILD a strong brand
• EXPAND your customer base
• MAXIMISE mental availability
• HARNESS the power of emotion
• BUDGET for growth
• BALANCE the budget between brand building and activation

Sounds a lot like B2C, right? 

Similar, but not the same. There is still a skew in where you should focus. Yes, there is more emphasis on lead generation for B2B brands, but you can’t ignore brand building. It’s vital for your B2B brand’s share of voice, for broad reach and appeal to new customers, or top of mind awareness. 

Additionally, brand building is where the human factor – emotion – lies. When it comes to lead generation, you need a rational approach and precise targeting, but when you’re brand building, you need to harness all the natural emotion of the human psyche… just like B2C marketing does. 

Overall, Binet and Field recommend spending 54% of your budget on lead generation and activation, while the more emotional, broad-reaching brand building should receive 46%. 

Long-term versus short-term – where should you invest?

Before their latest research, Binet and Field were well known for a book called “The Long and the Short of It”, which provided rules and strategies for how businesses could balance their long-term and short-term marketing efforts. It’s a question that marketers have been trying to answer for a long time.

Inspired by that earlier work, David van Shaick, the CMO of The Marketing Practice cites some interesting statistics:

“Those marketers who outperform their competition think and act long-term. They are twice as likely to run and measure campaigns for more than six months, twice as likely to invest more than 60% of their budget towards long-term goals, and nearly twice as likely to contract with agencies for two years.” 

David van Shaick notes the most important things for B2B marketers are customer insights, creativity, cross-functional collaboration, and learning from the flexibility and adaptability of the fast-paced B2C cycles. 

“Leading marketers are more likely to test, learn and adapt rather than cut and run.” – David van Shaick, CMO of The Marketing Practice

If you’re a B2B marketer, don't be afraid to experiment and use short-term data for your creative tactics. Meanwhile, your overarching strategy must be long-term for your targeting and proposition. Trust is highly valued in B2B marketing, and building trust takes time. 

Appeal to the human B2B buyer

Binet and Field’s research resonates with me. Their acknowledgement of the value of brand building and harnessing emotion reaffirms B2B buyers are people too. It doesn’t matter if you sell shoes or if you sell adtech, you still need to appeal to a human decision maker. Even traditional industries can greatly benefit from personalisation, after all.

If you’re a B2B marketer, how do you feel about the overlap between B2C and B2B? Do you see value in positioning your brand to have broad appeal and speak to peoples’ emotions? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts!