B2B vs. B2C Branding — What You Should Know
When building a brand and efficiently marketing your product or service — the type of business model will have an effect on how you go about crafting your digital presence. Whether it's informing your social media strategy or transforming the way you manage lead generation, knowing where you stand in your industry and marketplace matters. There are primarily two ways digital marketers approach this:
B2B marketing (business-to-business)
B2C marketing (business-to-consumer)
Now, marketers have evolved over the years as clients and customers have grown more aware and educated on various products and services. While in the past, B2B marketing aimed at capturing more logical purchasing decisions — those that are perhaps "more cost-efficient, faster, or have more functionality." On the other hand, B2C marketing was far more emotionally charged, with language and visuals attempting to capture consumers' feelings to influence purchasing decisions.
Today, the lines are blurred, offering a combination of both logical and emotional marketing initiatives in both the B2B and B2C arenas. This amalgamation of strategies can lead to confusion in getting the most out of your digital marketing efforts. So, let's dive into what you should know about branding, client + customer relationships, and targeting in both the B2B and B2C ecosystems.
Branding
Forming a brand takes a lot of work, and for it to be successful, there has to be some consideration of how it functions within its respected market, customer base, and various channels.
B2B: Emphasis on Relationships
For business-to-business brands, the focus should be on relationship building. How your brand presents itself, delivers its products or service, and expresses a sense of leadership within a given industry has a significant impact. With all branding efforts, consistency is key.
Now, that doesn't mean everything needs to be dry or completely "left-brained." In fact, mixing in your positioning in the industry with some of your brand's personality and values is a great way to capture both the logical and emotional attention of your potential audience.
Knowing how to position your brand in the highly competitive and informed B2B marketplace can be a challenge, but focusing on relationship building gives you the trusted recognition and advocacy you need to reach your goals.
B2C: Messaging Matters
Marketing helps guide a brand's message in a wide variety of ways. Whether it's brand credibility, awareness, loyalty, or even advocacy — B2C marketing connects businesses with human customers.
B2C marketing finds its foundations in emotional interactions with the target audience, but that doesn't mean it should rely solely on passion or "feelings" to get the job done. Customers are growing increasingly informed about the products and services they rely on. Whether it's through:
Product or service reviews
Educational content
Testimonials
"Unboxing" videos
And more
However, it's important that marketers do their best to create lasting impressions with their target audience — as these interactions may be limited. Whether it's through motivation, humor, education, or emotional content or advertising, B2C brands should look for ways to relate or be memorable with their consumers.
Relationships
Building customer relationships is a crucial part of branding success. However, the type of relationships varies from B2B to B2C, which means marketing efforts will need to be aimed in the right direction to find success.
B2B: Partnerships Are Personal
When it comes to B2B marketing, it's all about lead generation, and sales funnel success. In order to reach your business's goals, you'll need to hone in on personal relationships that can lead to long-term business progress.
So, how does one build personal relationships with clients and customers? Well, it starts by staying true to your brand's values, morals, ethics, and practices to attract customers while also showing what you're all about.
Plus, personal relationships are crucial to repeat business — which is essential for B2B brands. Getting sparkling referrals has a real impact, as trusted names can help build your trust factor as well.
B2C: Customer Experience Matters
Now, we're not saying that the customer experience isn't important for B2B businesses, but with B2C relationships, it's the name of the game. From start to finish, B2C marketers need to drive customers from the realization that a product exists to a final purchase (and then go above and beyond to keep them around). Every step in the customer journey should be carefully crafted to reflect buyer personas or target markets — leading to flawless customer experiences from start to finish.
It's not an easy task, but it's how so many businesses find success in the B2C marketplace. It's about efficiency — but it's not just an "assembly line" style strategy. Instead, every step of the journey needs to be attentive to potential buyer's actions. Whether it’s building trust through social media or making the purchasing experience more convenient, each step builds upon the next.
Awareness - social media, email, ads, etc.
Search - organic search, PPC, "near me."
Research - Blogs, video content, infographics, social media.
Purchase - website, eCommerce, apps, in-store experience
Post Purchase - loyalty programs, reviews, follow-up emails, etc.
Every part of this journey requires some attention in order to get the most bang for your B2C marketing buck.
Targeting the Right Audience
One of the most crucial aspects of successful branding efforts for both B2B and B2C companies is targeting. Without a sound understanding of who the audience is, where they spend their time, and how they react to various marketing efforts — you won't be able to capitalize and achieve the full potential of your brand.
B2B: It's All About the Niche
Most B2B businesses find their home in niche markets, which means getting to know the target demographic and the marketplace itself is crucial. This is where data plays a significant role in guiding branding efforts in the right direction.
Your lead generation strategy depends on analytics, whether it be search engine data, social media numbers, email campaigns, or other marketing tactics — every moving piece will issue some sort form of informative insight. Get to know your niche and build your lead generation strategy around the numbers.
B2C: Stick to a Plan
It's important to note that B2C companies work with a far larger and more spread-out audience than B2B businesses. Because of this, branding efforts need to stick to the funnel, guiding customers through with a robust marketing strategy that stays true to a brand's core values.
It may start with pushing emotionally-driven or product-related content out through social media to reach a wide audience, spreading awareness about a brand, product, or service. Similarly, with B2B branding, data still plays a significant role, informing what you can do next to bring in stragglers or keep around repeat customers.
Content plays a huge role in B2C branding. Whether it's through:
Blogs + articles
Video
Optimized landing pages
Social media content
Giveaways + contests
And more
Knowing what type of content to create and when to push it out plays a huge role, so having a strong content strategy that you stick to is key.
Branding Matters
Knowing how and where to brand, cultivate relationships, and reach your audience properly are just a few of the many considerations business owners have to take. While most marketers understand the foundational differences between B2B and B2C marketplaces, the digitalization of businesses around the world has changed how customers and clients respond to yesterday's tactics.
The future of marketing isn't nearly so cut and dry (emotional vs. logical), but instead a combination of strategies, customer experience ideologies, content initiatives, and analytics.
