For marketing agencies that cater to B2B and B2C clients, your strategy won’t be an off-the-shelf solution you can just use for both. There are nuances and differences you’ll need to keep in mind when it comes to crafting B2B and B2C strategies that’s going to bring in their respective results.

To help you get to grips with creating winning strategies for your B2B and B2C clients, we’ll delve into their differences, as well as some strategy best practices for both categories.

B2B and B2C Digital Marketing

Before we go any further, let’s break down the definitions of B2B and B2C Digital Marketing for clarity’s sake.

B2B Digital Marketing

B2B – or business-to-business – concerns transactions that take place between one business to another. That means the first business creates marketing that’s designed to target the latter. The resulting purchases are made on behalf of an organisation, rather than individual people.

B2C Digital Marketing

In a B2C, or business-to-consumer model, a business caters to individual consumers. As such, such businesses target their marketing to the needs and interests of these individuals to move them closer to making a purchase.

The key differences between B2B and B2C Digital Marketing

It’s not just the audience that differs across either model. The methods used to target B2B and B2C audiences differ too. To help with crafting your respective strategies, keep these key differences in mind…

Purchasing behaviour

With B2C, you’re catering to people on an individual level. B2B customers on the other hand have to run decisions by a series of other employees of escalating seniority before any of them get approval. So it’s important to remember this: with B2B digital marketing, you’re marketing to everyone across a business, not just a single person, which makes the purchasing process a lot slower.

In the B2C world, purchases are more transactional compared to B2B. It’s much quicker in comparison, with usually only one person involved in making the decision. And perhaps most importantly, they’re driven by emotions. B2C customers tend to go with their gut, and brands with a story that resonates and emphasises their products’ benefits helps audiences trust their instincts a lot more.

Sales funnel

B2C marketing is more focused on the sales funnel, aiming to move prospective customers through it as quickly as possible by meeting them where they are – then making it easier for them to purchase.

With B2B, the purchase is a far bigger decision, one that usually comes with a contract that can last from a few months to several years too. A purchase of this size is likely to be used across a few different projects, so consider their long-term needs and the ways your product can address these in your marketing. 

The business is ultimately purchasing something from you because they want to make a profit. The employee making the purchase wants to know that your product financially makes sense for the business as a whole – your marketing’s messaging should emphasise how it will.

Content approach

B2B audiences love detail – so you can go all in educating them about your product. The more they know about your product, the more chance you have of them purchasing from you, so get into the details of what it can do for them, what they need to know about using it and anything else you feel is important about your product.

B2C audiences aren’t as receptive to information overload, so avoid inundating them with content that’s crammed with buzzwords and formal language, and strike a more informal tone across it.

Channels & tactics

B2B digital marketing usually focuses on channels like LinkedIn, industry forums and email marketing – places where B2B brands can credibly flex their expertise to audiences looking to get their teeth into some real knowledge. Content that educates and informs is B2B digital marketing’s bread and butter, going a long way to build relationships and create trust with a business.

As for B2C channels, brands favour platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube; places that let them directly engage with consumers where visual content can really pop. Storytelling, emotional connection and a focus on how products can improve an audience’s lives can make a major impact on a consumer.    

For more information on digital marketing tactics, and how they differ from strategy, head here.

Best practices for a B2B Digital Marketing Strategy

Of course, the strategy you’ll create will be different for each of your clients, but here are some broad stroke best practices that any B2B digital marketing strategy should feature…

Content Marketing 

For a B2B audience, things like blog posts, white papers, case studies and informational videos are perfect for providing them with detail-rich information and expertise.

Optimise this content for SEO by targeting the keywords you know your target audience is looking for so they can land on you first.

Make your brand visible to a B2B audience across their entire journey – create content for every stage across the customer journey right up to when visitors are about to buy.  

Social Media

Social media still has its place in a B2B context. Use it to do the following:

• Broadcast your blog content directly to your audience
• Post industry news and company updates
• Link to case studies and whitepapers
• Post client or partner testimonials

Avoid being overly sales-y on your socials. Focus on informing and engaging your followers by directing them to what you offer.

Email Marketing 

The return on investment for email marketing makes it a more than worthwhile part of your B2B strategy.

Resources are key here, so create a newsletter featuring news updates, resources, and whitepapers to increase your lead nurturing abilities.

Don’t forget to personalise your emails too. Segmenting your audience and then creating email content that speaks to each segments’ needs is great for increasing customer loyalty.

Paid Media

Speaking of segmenting, make sure you’re showing relevant ads to the right persona segments, in places you know they can be found online – demographic and behavioural analysis can help unearth these kinds of insights.

Use A/B testing to see which kinds of messaging are resonating most with your audience.

Scale up and down your spend depending on how well your ads are working.

Account-Based Marketing

Combining the above with Account-Based Marketing (ABM) can yield huge results. That’s because ABM treats specific high-value accounts like they were individuals, creating highly personalised marketing that has the potential to create a huge ROI.

You might want to try out the following:

• Creating a value proposition tailored to each individual account you want to target.

• Designing specific landing pages for each account, adding relevant content such as case studies and CTAs that you know will resonate.

• Engaging and building relationships with target accounts you know are active on certain social channels.

• Creating quality content, paid ads and retargeting emails that can deal directly with each account’s pain points.

Best practices for a B2C Digital Marketing Strategy

Content Marketing 

There’s a wide playing field to make use of when it comes to creating attention-grabbing, inspirational and, yep, even educational content in a B2C context – so think about what will inspire your audience.

User-generated content is one of the best ways you can do this. Reposting social media posts, images, videos and reviews made by your customers puts them front and centre. When they’re in the spotlight, they’ll feel more valued as people, creates more of a community and gives them an impetus to keep coming back for more.

Social Media

Linked to the above, influencer marketing has a huge part to play on your social channels. When your audiences see people who they view as an online authority talking your brand up, it creates a legitimacy that can increase trust, brand reach and keeps your content fresh across your socials.

Be sure to investigate your audience in more detail so you can find out which social channels they favour. Great content won’t hit its target if it’s posted in the wrong places. Find out where they hang out online and tailor your posts to the places they gather.

Short-form videos are a great way to stop them from scrolling through their feeds too. Micro content like this can be leveraged to show your brand activity, products and benefits in brief, but powerful, ways.

Email Marketing 

Build out your email list by featuring sign-up forms at the end of blog posts, page footers or on dedicated pages. This way, you’ll know which people want to hear from you in the form of offers, discounts and updates. 

Email is an effective way of personalising what you send customers, and boosting engagement, too. And right now, we’re seeing new innovations coming in that make doing so easier. Dynamic blocks can update parts of your emails based on their browsing and purchasing behaviour, while automated flows can be triggered based on web and app activity, delivering highly personalised email campaigns that essentially react to what they’re doing in real time.

Make sure you’re making use of remarketing to target users who begin a purchase but don’t finish it. This’ll help you reduce cart abandonment and – more importantly – boost conversions.

Paid Media

Retargeting can also be used across your paid ads too, keeping your brand top of mind whether users failed to make a purchase or have spent a while weighing things up on specific pages.

Keep your mobile users in mind. Mobile matters more than ever, so you should design your ads so both their visuals and copy are better suited to smaller screens.

Regardless of screen size, both your copy and visuals should be high quality. In terms of copy, we’d recommend the following:

• Keep things short and to the point
• Stick to character counts
• Use relevant language and keywords
• Encourage your users to act with strong CTAs, whatever your goal is

As for visuals, brands pay the price for low quality designs. Make sure users are engaging with your ads by creating relevant, high-quality creative that aligns with copy. The same goes for the landing page you link to; you’ve got them to click through, now it’s vital that the landing page shows how your product or service can solve their problem. 

Upgrade your digital marketing

To start seeing real success, you need to reach the right level of digital marketing maturity first.

But how do you know what that is? Take our Digital Marketing Maturity Quiz to find out what your current level is – and see which changes you need to make to improve operations and boost growth.

Fill in the form here to get started.

Having goals is one thing, but achieving them is another. Our team of experts can help with the latter, creating powerful digital strategies that bring in real results for your business. For more information, head here or give us a call on 0345 459 0558.