How Are B2B and B2C Marketing Different?

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the greatest product or service in the world. You could have the fountain of youth, for all it’s worth. But how good your product is simply doesn’t matter if no one knows about it.

If you don’t market your product or service, no one will ever hear about it. And if they don’t hear about it, how are they ever going to purchase it?

Suffice to say, marketing is one of the most crucial functions of a business. B2B and B2C marketing both are crucial to taking a company from zero to success. Without marketing, no company has ever succeeded.

The type of marketing you employ, however, depends on the product you sell and the industry you serve. In this article, you’ll learn all about the differences in B2B vs B2C marketing. 

What is B2C Marketing?

Let’s first take some time to understand what B2C marketing is. B2C stands for a simple phrase: business 2 community. The underlying concept is that a business is selling a product or service directly to consumers.

Most of the major companies that you think of are B2C companies. For instance, think about Walmart. Walmart serves a plethora of consumers who come into their stores everyday to purchase their products. Walmart does not serve as a middleman that sells to businesses, but rather directly to the consumers. Thus, Walmart is a B2C company.

It follows that B2C marketing entails all of the marketing strategy that a business employs to reach out directly to consumers.

What is B2B Marketing?

B2B stands for a similar phrase: business 2 business. A B2B brand sells its product or service to businesses. An example of a B2B company is an IT solutions firm. Such a company will cater to fulfilling the technology needs of a business. They do not sell directly to the consumer, but rather to a business that may sell to another business or directly to the consumer.

There are some companies that operate both B2B as well as B2C businesses. Take, for instance, Delta Airlines. This airline operates in the B2C sector by selling flight tickets directly to consumers.

However, it also operates in the B2B sector by selling flight packages to corporates for their employees’ business travel. Thus, it has to combine both B2B and B2C marketing strategies in order to reach the required audiences.

Now that we have a solid understanding of what B2B and B2C marketing are, let’s look at how they are different within specific applications.

Creating the Ideal Buyer Persona

Any marketing agency worth its salt (like Motion) knows the importance of creating an ideal buyer persona. An ideal buyer persona is essentially a profile containing demographics, interests, and a ton of other information about what the perfect customer for your company looks like.

For a B2C brand, this ideal buyer persona will include specific people. The buyer profile will cater to a specific kind of person with specific interests, a certain location, a set of habits, et cetera.

For a B2B brand, this ideal buyer persona does not include a person, but rather a business. The buyer profile will include information about the company size, the industry it serves, the technology stack it uses, and other related things.

Then, a marketing strategy is built to cater to that individual buyer persona.

Types of Content Marketing

One of the places where B2B and B2C marketing differ vastly is in content marketing. Given that content marketing is one of the most significant avenues for a marketing department to execute its strategy, the majority of the difference between B2B and B2C exists in the type of content that is published.

Think about what kind of content is consumed by the average consumer. A person will typically read blogs and peruse social media. Thus, a B2C marketing strategy is built largely around those two types of content.

On the other hand, B2B marketing requires a very different type of content. Typically, the product or service sold by the B2B brand is to improve the operations or efficiency of a business. Thus, the B2B company will publish white papers, technical eBooks, and slideshows with copious amounts of data that demonstrates the return on investment a company can see by investing in their product or service.

This type of content, which is a little dry for your average consumer to read, would hardly work in the B2C space.

Approaching Social Media Marketing

Another way where B2B and B2C marketing departments different greatly is when it comes to social media marketing. 

With a B2C brand, social media is more of a fun game. The brands have to be witty, funny, and respond instantly to any complaints (Wendy’s is a great example of this).

B2B brands, however, have to maintain a more professional aura. That means being more active on networks like LinkedIn than on networks like Twitter and Instagram. 

 

What Unites Them Both: Relationship Building

Despite the differences, there’s something very significant that unites both B2B and B2C marketing. And that’s the fact that both are focused on relationship building.

At the end of the day, selling is all about building close, personal relationships with the people who buy your product. Think of it this way — are you more likely to purchase something based on the behest of a mammoth conglomerate headquartered at some location far away from you, or from a company that has built a relationship with you to the point where you trust its recommendations?

In 10/10 cases, the latter is the way that you’ll go. Thus, any business, whether B2B or B2C, uses its marketing to develop relationships with its customers.

B2B and B2C Marketing, Made Easy

Now that you know the differences between B2B and B2C marketing, all that remains for you is to go out and start implementing the various strategies for your company. Whether you serve direct consumers or large brands, make sure that you make relationship building the core of what you do.

For more business advice, be sure to check out the rest of the articles on the website!