While countless marketers have opined on the differences between B2C and B2B marketing, the line between the two has recently been blurred. This shift is happening, in part, because more brands serve both consumers and businesses, as when a B2C luxury bed sheet startup lands a contract with a national hotel chain. Even the companies situated squarely on one end of the B2C–B2B spectrum are destined to lose out if they fail to learn from the other side.
The companies willing to innovate—by testing and adopting new methods pioneered by B2C, B2B, and even direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands—have a huge opportunity to stand out in 2020 and beyond.
We’re All Marketing to Millennials
What’s the key reason to stop parsing out B2C and B2B strategies? Today, most businesses are marketing to millennials. Thanks to Generation Y’s size—at 83.1 million, they’re the single largest consumer group—they’ve long been the obvious target for B2C marketers.
More recently, however, millennials have started moving up professionally into management positions. In 2016, millennials became the largest segment of the US workforce, and some researchers say they will make up 75 percent of the workforce by 2025. As baby boomers retire, they are stepping into decision-making roles with spending power, and B2B companies need to adjust their marketing plans accordingly.
Here are four key strategies to help B2B and B2C companies alike navigate this new reality:
Forget the Perceived Personal–Professional Divide
A key tenet of B2B marketing used to be that it should be more logic-driven and focused on ROI at the earliest stages of the customer journey. B2C marketing, for its part, was supposed to appeal more to emotions upfront.
New B2B buyers, however, don’t distinguish between the personal and the professional like those in decades past. According to a Deloitte study, millennials are “transforming the status quo by seeking purpose in the organizations they serve without sacrificing the flexibility to be who they are at work.” Today’s leaders and managers build corporate culture explicitly around personal passion and social purpose.
With personal and professional identity more aligned than ever, B2Bs can borrow from B2C marketing—building brand awareness around mission and social responsibility to draw prospects in, then focusing on ROI at research and consideration phases.
