When I began my career as a B2B marketer, I quickly realized that B2B and B2C marketing are two sides of the same coin. The two approaches are connected but vary on many fronts.
Marketing to businesses is a long-term endeavor involving a lengthy buying process. On the other hand, consumer marketing is more fast-paced and emotion-driven.
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But that’s not all.
In this article, I’ll explore the key differences between B2B vs. B2C marketing. From target audience to brand positioning, I’ll break down eight parameters to explain how these two approaches differ and intersect at times.
Table of Contents
What is B2B vs. B2C?
B2B stands for business-to-business. It describes businesses whose customers are other businesses. B2C stands for business-to-consumer. It describes businesses whose customers are individual consumers rather than professional buyers.
B2B vs. B2C Marketing
B2B and B2C marketing differ primarily in terms of their audiences and how they communicate to them. While B2C marketing focuses on quick solutions and enjoyable content, B2B marketing is more concerned with building relationships and proving a product's return on investment for a business customer.
What is B2B marketing?
I’ve spent almost a decade in the B2B marketing space. Having explored the ins and outs of this industry, I define B2B marketing as a way for businesses to build relationships with other businesses and gain buyers’ trust.
B2B marketing is dedicated to the needs, interests, and challenges of customers who purchase on their organization's behalf rather than for themselves.
What this looks like in practice: When I worked as a content manager at Videowise, a B2B ecommerce video marketing platform, I launched campaigns targeting ecommerce business owners who wanted to double down on video marketing. We created content addressing these business owners’ pain points and published reports to help them understand customer sentiment.
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What is B2C marketing?
While my marketing career has primarily focused on B2B marketing, I’ve also dabbled in B2C through some of my side projects.
I’ve understood that B2C marketing targets consumers like you and me and relies on emotional decision-making to drive purchases. It’s faster-paced and nudges customers to purchase something on impulse.
What this looks like in practice: When I launched my footwear brand, I created social media ads showcasing the before-and-after benefits of wearing my shoes. I tapped into my audience’s emotions when buying shoes and created a visual story to help them understand the benefits. The idea was to convince people to target people’s specific concerns and convince them to buy my products.
Where B2B and B2C Marketing Approaches Intersect
Of course, the lines between B2B and B2C can intersect at times. In fact, the same company can run B2B and B2C marketing campaigns simultaneously.
For example, an interior design agency that designs office spaces for businesses (a B2B service) might also design certain rooms of houses for homebuyers (a B2C service).
Another example is when an oral care company selling toothbrushes, toothpaste, and mouthwash to individuals (a B2C service) sells its products to dentist clinics (a B2B service).
When the differences between B2B and B2C companies are less clear, as in the examples above, it's best to examine their respective marketing strategies. These strategies can differ in a number of ways, which I’ll dig into below.
B2B vs. B2C Marketing: Breaking Down 8 Critical Differences
Let’s understand the key differences between B2B and B2C marketing. I’ve explored and observed several examples to come up with these eight differentiating parameters.
1. Target Audience
I’ve noticed that one of the fundamental differences between B2B and B2C marketing is the end-users.
Each approach targets a specific type of audience, which determines a brand’s core marketing channels, messaging, and overall strategy.
B2B marketing focuses on decision-makers in an organization — think managers, department heads, procurement leads, and similar. It speaks to a variety of roles involved in the decision-making process.
B2C marketing, on the other hand, targets different audience segments based on demographics like age, interests, and income. Brands can target a niche audience based on these demographics. For example, a haircare brand might target women with curly hair aged 18-36 years.
Let’s compare and contrast how the target audience differs in B2B vs. B2C marketing in the chart below.
2. Buyer Motivations
Buyer motivations are specific goals that nudge your target audience to buy from your business. I’ve realized that identifying and understanding these goals helps you resonate well with your buyers and drive conversions.
My experience in the B2B space tells me that buyers are always motivated to solve a clear problem statement and improve business ROI through a purchase. I’ve seen how businesses clearly document their pain points and requirements when going through the buying process.
For B2C marketing, buyer motivations are more emotional and desire-driven. That means people buy products — even if they don’t have an immediate need — based on how well you market the benefits.
Amanda Natividad, VP of marketing at Sparktoro, explains how B2B and B2C marketing are coming closer to each other when it comes to buyer motivations:
“We‘re starting to see the lines between B2B and B2C blur a bit now. And marketers acknowledge that even though we’re in a B2B marketing role, we are still marketing to people, and we need to tap into their intrinsic motivations to resonate on a more emotional level.”
3. Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel guides potential customers from discovery to purchase. I’ve relied heavily on these marketing funnels to take buyers from one step to another till they convert into paying customers.
I’d describe a marketing funnel as a fictional journey that buyers go through from the moment they find your brand to the moment they buy something.
I’ve also seen how the B2B marketing funnel is complex and lengthy. In fact, 87% of B2B buyers claim that a typical sales cycle can last six months. Why? Because multiple stakeholders are involved in a buying group. The funnel spans across several stages. In every stage, you have to educate the buying group about your offering and keep them engaged to maintain their interest throughout the process.
Research by Gartner indicates that once buyers are inside the funnel, they spend the majority of their time doing independent research.
On the other hand, the B2C marketing funnel is shorter with fewer touchpoints in the path to purchase. Brands can quickly capture attention and convince potential customers to buy using tactics like:
- Entertaining and engaging content
- Deals and exclusive discounts
- Influencer endorsements
- Limited-time offers
- Paid ad campaigns
- Personalization
Since B2C buyers are usually the sole decision-makers, the buying process is much faster and involves fewer stages.
Pro tip: If you want to build a marketing funnel for your brand, use our free customer journey map template to document how potential customers discover your brand and navigate the buying journey. You can survey a few customers to collect data points and fill in different details in this template.
With this journey map, you can find friction points and challenges for buyers before purchasing from you. Then, optimize the buyer journey to maximize conversions.
4. Strategic Goals and ROI
Another key differentiator for B2B vs. B2C marketing is the overall goals and ROI of your strategy.
There can be some overlap between the two approaches in terms of marketing goals. Here are some common goals I’ve found in both B2B and B2C marketing strategies:
- Increase brand awareness and visibility.
- Generate leads and book appointments.
- Drive conversions for different use cases.
- Boost website traffic and newsletter sign-ups.
However, the two aspects differ starkly in measuring marketing ROI.
For B2B businesses, marketing ROI is directly connected to revenue. Marketers have to attribute each campaign to a financial outcome and share its impact on the company’s bottom line.
In B2C campaigns, ROI is measured in many ways: creating brand visibility, enhancing loyalty, building a community, gaining social proof, and more. It’s not solely connected to revenue; brands run campaigns targeting metrics like consideration, loyalty, and brand recall.
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5. Customer Relationships
Customer relationships determine your retention rate and brand loyalty.
From my experience building and managing customer relationships, I’ve noticed how these can bring referrals and increase sales through positive word of mouth.
B2B marketing focuses heavily on relationship-building during the sales cycle.
Since trust is a critical part of the process, good B2B marketers deliver consistent value to potential customers and keep them engaged, irrespective of their buying intent.
Research suggests that B2B marketers consider relationship-building an important factor for cross-selling and upselling buyers.
However, this is an area where B2B marketers can learn from their B2C counterparts. Tina Donati, an expert content marketer, explains how:
“A lot of small brands try to make a meaningful impact through their customer experience. I feel like B2B brands have such a long way to go because it feels very transactional. There isn‘t a lot of face-to-face communication in SaaS companies. You don’t really know who you‘re talking to. That’s a big opportunity for the B2B industry to go above and beyond like D2C/B2C brands.”
B2C marketing is all about reaching the right audience and nudging them to make a purchase. However, most B2C brands curate an exceptional customer experience before and after purchase to foster loyalty.
For example, I’ve seen how brands like Chewy win their customers’ trust and build loyal relationships through social media interactions.
Here’s an example of a customer sharing their positive experience with Chewy.
6. Customer Lifetime Value
Your customer lifetime value (CLV) helps predict long-term revenue and shows how happy people are with your business. Marketers aim to increase CLV by making the customer experience frictionless and improving satisfaction.
B2B purchases often involve long-term contracts. That inevitably leads to a higher CLV. However, B2B marketers have to nurture relationships with existing customers to make them feel heard and establish long-term loyalty.
CLV is comparatively lower in the B2C space. In my stint as a B2C marketer, I increased CLV by encouraging repeat purchases and building loyalty. We launched a rewards program and built an active community of buyers to drive up these values.
7. Content Creation
B2B vs. B2C marketing used to differ significantly in terms of content creation. B2C content is more fun, entertaining, and easy to digest, while B2B content is more technical, in-depth, and effort-intensive.
But, B2B marketing has increasingly embraced B2C content creation trends to connect better with the audience.
The main difference in content creation is the types of content created in B2B vs. B2C marketing.
B2B brands focus heavily on social selling, i.e., using social platforms like LinkedIn to connect and interact with potential customers. These brands also create in-depth blog posts and email newsletters to engage their audience. Interactive demos are another popular content format for B2B marketers.
Research suggests the types of content B2B buyers consume before making a buying decision.
On the other hand, B2C marketing creates visually appealing content focused on building an emotional connection through storytelling. It clearly emphasizes benefits, often by showcasing real-life scenes from buyers’ daily lives.
Our research suggests that short-form video content is the most popular B2C marketing trend. There’s also an emphasis on influencer marketing and social commerce.
Pro tip: Wondering what types of content you should create? Our comprehensive digital marketing guide will help you develop a content strategy for different channels and formats. With this guide, you can also deep-dive into multiple aspects of content creation like SEO, competitor analysis, and more.
8. Brand Identity and Positioning
Your brand identity and positioning influence how people perceive your business. Done well, these factors can establish trust and recognition for your brand.
B2B marketing focuses on reliability and long-term value to create a brand identity. It also demonstrates your company’s authority in the industry through thought leadership. You have to position your brand as a strategic partner for your customers to drive their business growth.
On the flip side, B2C marketing aims to nurture an emotional connection. The ideal positioning talks about convenience and lifestyle benefits to create a personal appeal for buyers. Your identity relies on your unique story and emotional engagement.
Bottom line? B2B and B2B marketers have distinctive approaches.
My career as a marketer has been a lot about experimentation to understand the nuances of marketing.
These experiments taught me that B2B and B2C marketing run on different principles and tactics. While the two approaches intersect on a few levels, you need to think from a different lens to strategize for each approach.
However, no matter which side of the B2B or B2C divide a marketer works on, all marketing is H2H (human-to-human).
Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
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