B2B:

• Relationship driven
• Maximize the value of the relationship
• Small, focused target market
• Multi-step buying process, longer sales cycle
• Brand identity created on personal relationship
• Educational and awareness building activities
• Rational buying decision based on business value

B2C:

• Product driven
• Maximize the value of the transaction
• Large target market
• Single step buying process, shorter sales cycle
• Brand identity created through repetition and imagery
• Merchandising and point of purchase activities
• Emotional buying decision based on status, desire, or price

This weekend I got an email from a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University with questions about these comparisons for a project for her marketing class. I’m always glad to help students learning marketing so I sent her the following response to her questions.

What does it mean for B2B marketing to be relationship driven, maximizing the value of the relationship verses B2C marketing being product driven, maximizing the value of the transaction?

The goal of B2B marketing is to maximize the value of the relationship to the prospect through marketing efforts that educate them on value you provide. If done successfully, your marketing activities will result in a relationship built on trust and credibility. Value of the relationship will be determined by what is important to the client.

The goal of B2C marketing is to drive consumers to the product and maximize the value of the transaction through activities that upsell or provide incentives to buy additional products. Relationships between companies and consumers are based on the consumer’s experience during the purchase process. Value of the transaction will be determined by the quality of the experience or the transaction.

What does it mean to create a brand identity based on the personal relationship in B2B verses through repetition and imagery in B2C?

In B2B marketing, the brand is based on your reputation. So although B2B marketers develop brand awareness through marketing efforts, the brand identity is based on how how you treat clients, the quality of the work, how reliable you are, and other factors that provide value to the clients.

In B2C marketing, companies build brands by repeatedly getting the image in front of the consumer. Consumer products need to ensure we see their brand enough times to recognize it and consider it worthy of our purchase.

How has social media changed the landscape of B2B verses B2C marketing?

Social media has effected how brands are perceived across all of marketing, but it is more pronounced in B2C today. Developing relationships with consumers is now more important than ever and consumer marketing needs to understand how user generated content effects their brand and how to leverage new media to help them develop their brand identity and reputation.

Take Amazon as an example. They:

• Provide a purchase experience that encourages you to buy more.
• Build a relationship with you by personalizing your experience and making it extremely easy to do business with them.
• Add value through secure transactions.
• Develop user generated content by encouraging you to rate your purchase experience and the product.

This is all part of social media and how consumers are being influenced by their peers. It’s making B2C marketing more challenging but very interesting too. Will it have the same effect on B2B? Thoughts?

What most people don’t realize is that the marketing function really hasn’t changed. We still need to understand what the market wants or needs and whether it is aligned with what you have to offer. It is then the role of marketing to build awareness and generate demand.

What has changed is how marketing is being done. Traditional marketing that consisted of a controlled, crafted (read: sanitized) message and “pushed” out to the channel is no longer the best or only way to reach your constituents. This push model is no longer tolerated by many and not adapting your marketing to the new media model can tarnish a company’s brand. These new channels of communication require us to rethink how we deliver our message to our audiences.

But I can’t really say that traditional marketing is dead and gone as direct mail, email campaigns and advertisements on different media (magazines, newspapers and television) still work and supplement the online activities for B2B.

But online marketing has expanded to include social media tools that enable mutual conversation between companies. Marketing is no longer “campaign” driven - It is a long term project that ties together all the activities that helps the prospect learn who we are and how we can help them solve a problem/challenge.

A timely article published this week in Advertising Age, talks about the biggest challenges Marketers face with Social Networks. In the article, Michael Bush cautions marketers to learn the culture of social networks before you charge in. I made the same point in my previous post about watch, listen and learn, much in the same way you would enter a party with people you never met before.

“Any marketer worth its salt is going to spend a good deal of time studying the dynamics, rules and language of any social network before attempting to establish a presence there.”

What I have learned in my travels through social media is the biggest change is the need to think about marketing in new ways. Good marketers will suck up all the knowledge they can on the topic, figure out how to proceed and then put their plan into action - which is no different from what good marketers have done for years.

However, those who try to force the square peg (traditional marketing techniques) into a round hole (new media marketing), will not succeed. As stated in the article:

Most marketers think they can simply take their mainstream advertising efforts and activate them on these networks under the assumption that they will flourish.

Social networks are about connections and communication that builds the pathways to new, fruitful relationships. New media are the new tools of marketing that have made marketing conversations with your prospects and customers much easier and effective.

I’d love to hear from others on their views on how social media has affected them in their careers.

When speaking with companies about marketing, the topic of “should I integrate social media into my marketing plan this year” comes up. My advice is always the same: watch, listen and learn. Take small steps. Understand the accepted behaviors in this culture of social media. Then engage. By learning what is accepted before you dive in, you can avoid offending someone or embarrassing yourself in the process. 

In Matt Dickman’s Five Keys to Successful Blogger Outreach, he and the folks commenting provide valuable insight into how to engage bloggers to provide exposure to your products and services. I might add that taking it slow in building the relationship is my philosophy. Before you jump in and comment, send “news” out or do something that could land you on a blogger’s blacklist, understand what the writer is interested in and add value.

Keep following the thread from Matt’s post to Valeria Maltoni’s Revealing Yourself to Others as she highlights what works well and what does not when she is the target of the PR pitch. These rules apply to all forms of marketing using social media in my view.

The following interview of Matt Dickman and David Armano by Andy Sernovitz  offers good advice on getting started with social media for B2B marketing.

Armano’s advice: LinkedIn is a good place to get acquainted with social media.

Dickman’s advice: Listen to what your customers are saying about you in the various social media communities. Learn from it then take the next step.

Like any social setting, watch and listen to those around you for guidance on how to behave. When you feel ready, then dive in.

This post was prompted by the number of political phone calls that I’ve received in the past four days. Given that I am always looking for good examples on how NOT to do something in marketing, the robo calling that has been annoying as heck made this topic timely.

I’ve received up to three calls a day from the various campaigns trying to encourage me to go vote on Tuesday. Some of these calls actually left a voicemail message. And given this is Superbowl Sunday with our own beloved New England Patriots playing, I better not get another political campaign call this evening during the festivities.

I hadn’t remembered Drew’s post on the same topic about these type of calls leading up to the Iowa primaries until I stumbled upon it looking for information on this topic. Drew, I feel your pain!

The Marketing Lesson

But like Drew, my marketing lesson is about the real effect these calls may have on how these candidates are perceived. Recorded calls that basically, as Drew nicely put it, talk at me from folks explaining why I should vote for their particular candidate may just do the opposite.

Telemarketing can be an important part of any marketing strategy. It can be used for:

• Generating leads
• Following up on a direct mail or email campaign
• Qualifying prospects who have registered on your web site
• Registering people for an event
• Updating your marketing database
• Conducting market research

If you choose to use telemarketing, make sure you plan what you want to accomplish, employ well trained, qualified resources that can relate to the person they are calling, and target your telemarketing to people who are interested in what you have to offer. I really don’t mind getting telemarketing calls during business hours on my office phone as long as the person talks with me and has respect for my time. Engage your prospects into a conversation about what they need and know when to hang up. A well planned and executed telemarketing campaign can definitely help your bottom line.

As a B2B marketing person, you might think this list is overwhelming. However, in my view this is a wonderful list of potential tactics that you might employ depending on the goals you plan to achieve this year.

If you are new to Web marketing or have only dabbled in some search engine marketing, email campaigns or Internet advertising, this is a great list to get you thinking about other ways to get your message out or better, let your constituents get your message out for you.

If you are a veteran Web marketer, this is a great checklist to help you stimulate news ideas for your marketing plan.

In all cases, develop the plan, research the opportunities and execute effectively. Web marketing is no different from traditional forms in this respect.

Your brand is meant to be a reflection of your company, not just a projection of what you want it to be. It should communicate clearly and create credibility, provoking feelings about your company that makes your target market want to do business with you. Your brand should be developed through consistent use of your message throughout everything you do and say and then living up to the message you project.

Your brand is important and you should spend time and marketing dollars on ensuring you develop it correctly. Doing it right from the beginning is the best option, but rebranding can be done successfully. I have personally rebranded two software companies, but both times, the names didn’t change and the rebranding was done while the company was small and before any major milestones were established.

When should you change your brand?

There are times that justify some change, although in most cases change still should be minimal. Consider updating your brand if your brand is:

• Associated with a negative feeling
• Weak, poor quality or non-existent
• Out of sync with your identity

In these cases, your brand is not benefiting your business. It is inconsistent, ambiguous, or projects something you don’t want to be associated with. Develop a strategy to update your brand and then focus some marketing efforts to help build awareness around your brand. Remember that your brand is developed through an entire customer experience and needs to be reinforced consistently through your Web site, sales tools, promotional items, customer service, word-of-mouth and other aspects of doing business with you. Use the new brand as an opportunity to develop new client relationships while re-connecting with your current clients.

Take small steps
When changing your brand, take small steps to enable you to transition from the old to the new. Refresh the design by keeping key elements that still work and eliminating those that don’t. Keep your name or alter it only slightly. The key is to update your look without losing its recognition by those who have bought into it.

Giving your image a subtle facelift does get people to notice that something is different and may stop to look at what you have to offer. Note the subtle changes to the logos to the right. Adding dimension updates the look without changing it drastically. A little evolution of your look may be beneficial before you embark on a new marketing campaign. The majority of the time, however, you should resist changing your brand at all as there is value in your name and image. Like all things in marketing, just because you’ve gotten bored with your look or message, doesn’t mean your customer or prospect has.

The new year rings in the annual forecast of many topics, including B2B marketing spend. According to BtoB magazine’s “2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans” study, most B2B marketers (some 60%) plan to increase their 2008 marketing budgets - but fully 79% plan to increase their online marketing budgets. This number is up from 76% from 2007 predictions.

This really doesn’t surprise me. Online marketing activities are effective, can be targeted more extensively and can be more easily measured than most traditional marketing activities. That doesn’t mean you stop using other parts of the marketing mix. If something is working, keep doing it. If not, stop. That same philosophy includes online marketing activities as well.

Other key findings of the survey include:

• 62% said their primary goal in 2008 would be customer acquisition, 19% cited brand awareness and nearly 12% pointed to customer retention.
• Online will constitute more than one-third (nearly 34%) of marketing budgets in 2008, up from the nearly 27% cited for 2007.
• Areas where marketers said budgets would increase include website development (74%); email (70%); search engine marketing (64%); video (40%); webcasting (39%); banners (36%); sponsorships (30%); and social media (26%).
• Nearly 20% say they are using social media as part of the marketing mix: Among them, 53.8% use them for thought leadership, 40.4% use them for customer feedback, 31% for market research, 29% for advertising, 27% as a sales channel.

Another tactic that will see a spending boost in 2008 is event marketing, with 49.5% of marketers planning budget increases in this area. I’ve seen this trend with some of my clients, moving towards smaller, more focused conferences that provide the best venue for speaking with prospects. Sales people still see value in meeting people face to face and building relationships.

For more information on the survey:

• BtoB Magazine Online
• Marketing Charts

• Analyze what happened in 2007. What types of marketing did you do? How much did they cost? Did they result in new business for you? If so, how much? Did you get a return on investment of at least 2 to 1? If not, figure out why or stop doing that activity and try something else.
• Review your goals. Did you achieve what you set out to do over the past year? If not, why? Were they too lofty or not really relevant to what you were trying to accomplish with your business? Were your goals are S.M.A.R.T. goals - specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely?
• Evaluate your target market to be sure they are the most lucrative market you can go after. Is there a better Ideal Client for your business? Do you offer something unique that appeals to a more focused audience? Are you targeting a market that is too wide which results in your messages being watered down to the point where no one is hearing the value you offer?
• Review your core message for clarity and appeal. When someone asks you what you do, do you answer with a title? Does your message get a response like “really, tell me more?” or “I know someone who would benefit from that”?

Once you have this base information, work on your core message to grab the attention of your Ideal Client. Develop your 2008 marketing goals and the activities that will help you achieve them. Spend some time now putting your roadmap to success in place. Knowing what you want to do and how you will get there will help you make marketing easier to do more consistently.

Check out more articles on developing a marketing plan at the Vista Consulting Marketing Information area.

• Adjective: having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness or understanding; perceiving all things
• Noun: God

Wow, interesting message. Was this a “tongue in cheek” message or do they really think they know it all over their competition?

If you are writing the copy for an advertisement or any other marketing piece, besides using vocabulary that can be understood easily, there is a formula that you need to follow to get the best results:

• Captivate – get the attention of your Ideal Client
• Connect – appeal to them emotionally by understanding their issues and challenges
• Educate – build trust and credibility
• Motivate - give them a reason to take the next step in the process
• Move – get them to take some action

Writing copy that talks down to your audience may get their attention, but it certainly doesn’t connect with them or give them reason to do business with you. Having to look up a word in a dictionary certainly didn’t give me a warm and welcome impression of the company. I did learn what omniscient is although that’s not what is meant by educating the reader. How do you build trust and credibility when you are saying you know everything?

Writing needs to connect with your target audience. You get their attention if you write about something they care about. Whether it is a brochure, ad copy, blog post, article or whatever you are using to market your company, you need to make sure your writing speaks to them.

Once again I turn to Drew’s Marketing Minute for a great post about developing “personas” when you are writing your marketing materials.

The Marketing Lesson

Determine what really interests your audience and you will connect with your reader.

The Experience

I bought Cuisinart replacement filters for my coffee maker through Amazon which was fulfilled by SmallAppliance.com. The cost was under $20.

When the package arrived, two of the three boxes of filters were fine. In the third box, one of the filters was broken and the charcoal was loose inside the packaging. It was obvious that the filter was not broken during transit as the box and cellophane packaging was not opened or damaged.

I called SmallAppliance.com to get a replacement for the broken filter. I was told I had to take a picture and send it to them for proof of the damage so they could provide it to Cuisinart for them to get a refund. Then I was told that once I got the replacement I had to return the box with the broken filter.

I asked why for a $7 item I had to jump through hoops to get it replaced when most times the merchant just sends another and says keep the damaged item? Their answer was that they didn’t like it either but it was what Cuisinart required of them in order to get a refund for the damaged goods.

Ok, call me crazy but was this really worth my dissatisfaction for an item that may have cost Cuisinart 10 cents to make that was defective from the time it left their warehouse? Is this Cuisinart’s way of punishing distributors because they can sell the product cheaper than the manufacturer can (Cuisinart charged $10 vs. $7 from SmallAppliances.com for the single box of 2 filters)?

I’m letting SmallAppliance.com off the hook here only because I had to believe them when they said they had to do this to get a refund from Cuisinart. Plus they got points when the manager emailed me back when she got the picture and apologized profusely again about the inconvenience.

This return policy/process should be reviewed by the management of both companies. Was this really worth the effort for the negative feelings I have now? I love Cuisinart appliances, but I will now think twice before I buy another in the event I need to return a replacement part.

The Marketing Lesson

Review your processes you use with your clients. If they take more effort than they are worth, streamline or better, eliminate them. Make it as easy to do business with you as you can. When you are providing a service to your customers or clients (distributors are service businesses, not product businesses), make the entire experience one of your key differentiators that get you noticed over the competition.

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