Posted by Shahid Abbasi
December 26, 2017
Table of Contents
Is your content marketing strategy bringing you leads? Do you think your message is reaching to the right people?
Content is the best way to demonstrate business to the audience at large. It will suffice your marketing purpose only when it is able to connect with the targeted audience. If it is reaching wrong people, probably your efforts are going in vain.
When it comes to giving marketing tips, all the people are just talking about creating robust content. No one discusses the diverging points of B2B and B2C. Indeed it matters a lot for the success of marketing campaign.
When it comes to e-commerce businesses, there is only one thing that matters is a customer, be it B2B or B2C. Though it might look similar, businesses and customers purchases with distinct reasons.
The thinking procedure of both the types of customers vary. Due to this reason, it becomes imperative to plan out different strategies to be the leader of both the arenas.
For this purpose, it becomes essential to understand choices and tastes of them. Accordingly, you can design your content marketing strategy to attract targeted audience.
Hitting the emotions through content is the key to success attracts right audience. These type of customers tend to think with their heart. In fact, studies demonstrate all the customers use to buy by justifying the facts and relying on the emotions.
During content creation, using emotional feelings can help viral your massage that attract a number of people, resulting in converting leads into conversion rates. It’s just that they must feel secure throughout the entire buying process.
The approach of business customers is a bit different when it comes to making a purchasing decision. Though emotions are perpetually a segment of the buying process, B2B customers tend to make decisions with the logic that are hard and cold.
Unlike the strategy of B2C customers, you can’t come up with an approach of ‘one size fits all’. For B2B customers, every time you’d require to tailor your marketing strategy. This way you can accommodate flexibility to your business customers and earn their trust in return.
To attract B2B customers, you’d have to focus on creating content that offers information and show off your thought leadership. Offering exceptional customer services and sharing helpful information continuously will definitely get awareness and win the readers trust that are essential to take buying decision. If a B2B customer has made a single purchase then there are high chances for his returning and that too with big orders.
Now that the difference between B2B and B2C customers are clear, let us break the nutshell and understand how it affects the strategy of content marketing.
The foremost area that makes us stand on the diverging point of B2B and B2C is the intention.
While there are ample of companies who have B2B customers as their targeted audience, but it is the business knowledge that allows them to stand out. Unlike, end-user consumers, they are not interested just in the product or services offered, but also the brand. The better is your content able to showcase your brand, higher is the chance to engage them, leading to the conversion.
Targeting B2B customers would be a great responsibility. You’d have to come up with a thought leadership. If a business customer found a better brand, he will definitely make purchases, increasing the scope of future orders.
When thought leadership is this important for business customers, this approach won’t be a right fit while targeting B2C customers. These type of customers would not at all be interested in what is the business and how well is the brand image.
B2C customers are just interested in the product or services that are offered. They make a purchasing decision with several motivations such as reliability. If they found out that the brand is able to deliver what business promises, B2C customers are more likely to trust it.
Therefore, the intent of content marketing campaign of both B2B and B2C has to be different to suffice your purpose evidently. While targeting B2B customers, a goal to create thought leadership would work wonders to set you apart from the others. Meanwhile, building an individual image or expressing cost-effectiveness perks will help you the most while dealing with B2C customers.
Be it B2B or B2C, constructing a campaign of content marketing message must be inspired by the targeted audience.
As there is the difference between B2B and B2C, so does in the way they look for in any business. B2B customers strive for service, value, and trust; whereas B2C customers want emotional satisfaction of product/service and consider its price before they make their purchasing decision.
While creating a content marketing campaign, you must keep these preferences in your mind for shining out among the audience. If you’re a content creator for B2B customers, adding trust, value and service would work wonders to engage them. Accordingly, you can maintain the tone of content and craft it so wisely that business customers find it interesting to give you a try.
If you’re reaching to B2C customers, on the other side, proving your price as the cost-effective and emotional satisfaction will set you apart. By this means, efficacy of these tactics will help you take your business to the next level.
Another important deviating point of B2B and B2C customers is the channel. It matters a lot to reach the right audience, as it is the way to do so.
When it comes to marketing channel, undeniably the business targeting B2C customers have the better scope than B2B. There are various channels through which it is possible to reach B2C audiences such as traditional advertising, Geo-targeting apps, physical promotions and much more. This is because, generally, the majority of the targeted audiences are nearby.
With B2B business, on the other hand, there are limited scopes of marketing. This doesn’t mean, it is impossible for them to create better engagement opportunities. Instead, just a piece of native advertising on a big platform can help them to attract a large chunk of business customers which would apparently bring you a great scope to expand. Selecting effective and trending channel for a content marketing campaign will impress you with the better results than B2C customers which are one-time buyers.
The format of a content is another prospective way that differs B2B from B2C. There is a certain set of preferred formats by each of its types. Referring these preferences, you can help yourselves to improve content marketing strategy.
Studies show B2B buyers prefer to go through white papers, case studies, and technology guides during the purchasing process. B2C buyers, on the other hand, tend to refer user-generated content, comprising of real-time marketing such as social media.
However, these preferences don’t mean a B2C marketers should not get their hands on white papers for marketing or B2B should not create user-generated content. It’s just that referring these choices you can pay more attention to the preferred channels to reach a greater number of audiences.
The main goal of marketing any business is CUSTOMER. It is the main aspect that affects the purpose of promoting and branding. Therefore, it becomes exceptionally essential to consider whether or not your marketing message is reaching your target audience. Simply creating content while keeping mind your targeted audience won’t work in any way. It is not a final call in the marketing. Rather, you’d have to come up with two distinct strategies varying with the types of customers.
On one hand where B2C customers seek for security, useful information and use their heart to think. On the contrary B2B customers make a purchasing decision that involves a thought process which used to be logical and profit driven by using their minds.
Since there is difference in the goals and perspective of both B2B and B2C business, its strategies should also vary. Have worked with any of these audiences in past? If so then share us your approach by posting on the social media. We’d love to have a word from you.