B2B

Hey there new B2B marketer! 

Diving into the world of B2B advertising can be confusing and overwhelming. 

In this article I’m going to walk you through 8 differences between B2B & B2C you need to know. 

This article is part of our B2B learning track so if you’re serious about learning B2B advertising you’re in the right place! 

Let’s dive into it 👏

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• 8 Biggest Differences Between B2B and B2C
• The Cost of The Product
• How Purchase Decisions Are Made
• The Average Sales Length
• Smaller Audience Sizes
• Different Distribution Strategies
• Need to Support Multiple Sales Funnels
• Team Sport, Not Individual
• Go Further Than Just The First Conversion

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8 Biggest Differences Between B2B and B2C

In no particular order of importance, here are the 8 biggest differences between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) advertising. 

The Cost of The Product

The first key difference between B2B and B2C is the cost of the product. 

B2B marketers call this the average deal size or average contract value depending on what is sold. 

Typically, B2B products are more expensive ranging from $1,000 to over $250,000.

How Purchase Decisions Are Made

In B2B buying, there will be more people involved in the purchase of the product compared to B2C where there is usually only one person involved.

This is often referred to as a buying committee, in B2B your job is to nurture, educate, and reach everyone in this group so they can collectively decide to purchase the product. 

The Average Sales Length

There are more people involved with purchasing the B2B product or service and the product is typically a more expensive purchase, the length of time to purchase that product is typically longer. 

Depending on the complexity of what is being bought, sales cycles can range from 30 days to 36 months. The higher and more complex the product or service is the longer the sales cycle typically is.

This is different from B2C because it can take me 30 seconds to buy something off an Instagram ad. 

I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing 🤣

Smaller Audience Sizes

With B2B advertising programs, you’ll be targeting smaller audiences across ad channels. 

Your audience will typically be less than 300,000 contacts with a focus on reaching the right person and company vs B2C where your audiences will typically be much broader than this since more people can purchase your product or service.

Different Distribution Strategies

Since you’ll be reaching a much more targeted audience, and you may be dealing with a specific budget – the ad channels you decide to use may look different than your B2C advertising counterparts. 

It all comes down to where your audience lives and breathes, digitally.

Believe me, I’ve been behind some powerful Facebook ads for B2B. But, you may think twice about using a TV commercial during the Super Bowl as a B2B marketer (well…unless you’re Salesforce!)

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But again, this will all depend on your budget and the breath of your buyers.

Need to Support Multiple Sales Funnels

In B2B, your advertising campaigns will support and fuel multiple sales funnels and processes. 

The big three are product-lead, sales-lead, and a hybrid of both.

You can learn more about each revenue model in our B2B Advertising Guide. 

Team Sport, Not Individual

B2B advertising requires strategic alignment across multiple teams including sales, marketing, and customer success departments to support the buyer’s journey and close deals more effectively.

Given the fact that it’s not just about reaching a specific individual but also a company. 

This increases the importance and complexity of working across teams. 

Go Further Than Just The First Conversion

The B2B sales processes are more complex and there's more buyers involved. 

Your advertising campaigns should be designed to help impact the entire buyer journey.

Not just the first conversion like B2C advertising.

I hope you found this article helpful! 

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Jumpstart Your B2B Marketing Career

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to check out my free course that will teach you the foundational knowledge to becoming a high-performing B2B marketer who knows how to use advertising to drive legit business and revenue impact without the fluff or wasting your time and money learning the ropes the hard way.

• Module 1: you’ll get a crash course in the B2Bverse and master terminology, sales processes, and working across teams.
• Module 2: you’ll learn how to become your customer's psychologist and understand them deeply with buyer personas that allow you to craft effective messaging.
• Module 3: you’ll master the B2B funnel and learn how to think like a CEO to identify performance bottlenecks and convert more leads into revenue.
• Module 4: you’ll learn how to put it all together and build your go-to-market strategy that gets your ad in front of your dream buyers and converts attention.

‍This course was designed for absolute beginners in mind.

Accelerate your learning curve and start the course today for free.

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Hey there B2B marketing grasshopper 👋

In this article, we're channeling our inner Mr. Miyagi from "The Karate Kid," because we're about to master the art of creating B2B buyer personas. 

Wax on, wax off style – but with less wax and more wisdom!

Let’s dive into it. 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• What Is a B2B Buyer Persona?
• 3 Major B2B Marketing Personas
• How to Develop a B2B Buyer Persona
• The Five B2B Buyer Persona Segmentations
• B2B Buyer Persona Template
• Translating B2B Buyer Persona’s into Ad Targeting

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What Is a B2B Buyer Persona?

Just like Daniel-san needed to understand his opponents in the All Valley Karate Tournament, it's important to understand your B2B buyer personas to win in the market. 

It's critical because these personas are your roadmap – they guide every marketing punch and kick you make.

If you don’t do this, your marketing efforts might be as off-target as Daniel-san trying to catch a fly with chopsticks on his first try. 

We're talking about misdirected resources and messaging that misses the mark, leaving your ROI down and out — so let's break it down, Karate Kid style:

What is a persona? It’s the semi-fictional characters that make up your target audience. It’s a great way to unpack who makes up your ideal customer profiles, called an “ICP”

3 Major B2B Marketing Personas

In B2B marketing there are 3 major personas or roles to understand in the sales process.

This is also referred to as a buying committee:

1. Decision Maker – The person who makes the final decision to purchase
2. Champion - A person who enthusiastically supports your product or service in their organization
3. Influencer - A person who can influence other members of the buying committee

Your marketing and advertising efforts should address their needs and concerns when it comes to buying and using your product or service. 

Knowing what these personas are looking for will help you tailor your messaging to make your ads stand out.

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For example: imagine your buyer persona 'Finance-Manager-Frank'. He's in his mid-40s, loves numbers more than karate, and is always on the lookout for tools that bring efficiency and balance. Where does he find his information? → LinkedIn and financial blogs

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Knowing this, you’d be able to hone in your advertising strategy to use LinkedIn ads to demonstrate how finance managers find more efficiency from their investments by using your product.

How to Develop a B2B Buyer Persona

There’s 5 major segmentation buckets to consider when putting together a B2B buyer persona:

1. Demographic Segmentation
   • Targeting potential customer based on their role (ex: Job Titles, Job Functions)
2. Firmographic Segmentation
   • Targeting potential customers based on company traits (ex: Industry, Company Size)
3. Geographic Segmentation
   • Targeting potential customers based on their company and physical location (ex:USA)
4. Technographic Segmentation
   • Targeting potential customers based on the tech they use (ex: Slack, Teams) 
5. Behavioral Segmentation
   • Fine tune your messaging based on your potential customers Jobs To Be Done, decision-making process, and more.

Within each segmentation, there’s key information you should collect to build your personas which will ultimately inform your advertising channel strategy, targeting, and messaging. 

Getting crystal clear on your buyer personas will also help you maximize your resources, build internal trust with your sales and service teams, and drive better results.

Let’s dive into the five segmentations in greater detail. 

The Five B2B Buyer Persona Segmentations:

Demographic

Target potential customer based on their role

1. Role: Identify the job title and role they’re in and what level in their organizations they fall (individual contributor, middle management, or in the C-suite – chief roles including CEO, CFO, CMO, etc).
2. Responsibilities: Identify all the key areas they oversee and manage. Pulls who they report to.

Firmographic

Target potential customers based on company traits

1. Company Industry: ex: Technology, Manufacturing 
2. Company Employee Size: ex: 500 - 1,000 employees 
3. Company Revenue Size: $1,000,000 - $10,000,000 ARR

Geographic

Target potential customers based on their company and physical location

1. Company Location: ex: United States, Canada
2. Employee Location: ex: United Kingdom 

Technographic

Target potential customers based on the tech they use

1. Tools: This breaks down the tools they use or need to do their jobs (ex: Slack, Teams)
2. Company Competitors: list out any relevant competing technologies 

Behavioral

Fine tune your messaging based on your potential customers Jobs To Be Done, decision-making process, and more.

1. Goals: This details how their job is measured by
2. Jobs to be Done/Pain Points: This elaborates on the biggest challenges they face in their role
3. Decision-Making Process: This goes into detail on who they need approval from when buying a new product/service, who signs the contract, who owns the budget
4. Evaluation Process: This details how this persona typically decides on a product
5. Objections & Concerns: this outlines what prevents them from making a decision 
6. Consumption Habits: how do they gain information for their job and what social media networks do they use

B2B Buyer Persona Template

To help you put this into action get a free copy of my B2B Buyer Persona template in Module 2 - Lesson 2 of my B2B Advertising Foundations Course when you sign up for free.  With this template you will be able to easily map out your buyer persona across the five segmentations.

Translating B2B Buyer Persona’s into Ad Targeting 

After completing the B2B Buyer Persona template you should be very clear on who you’re going after. 

Now you’ll want to review your persona’s segmentation and find possible targeting opportunities in the platforms you’re considering advertising on – your options will vary greatly by channel. 

Create a draft campaign in your ad platform of choice and review all of the audience targeting options available – sometimes you’ll need to get creative! (example below of LinkedIn Ads). 

And that my advertising friends is your way to craft a buyer persona you can use to identify the audiences you’ll be targeting in your B2B advertising.

Hope you found this article useful! 

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Jumpstart Your B2B Marketing Career

If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to check out my free course that will teach you the foundational knowledge to becoming a high-performing B2B marketer who knows how to use advertising to drive legit business and revenue impact without the fluff or wasting your time and money learning the ropes the hard way.

‍

• Module 1: you’ll get a crash course in the B2Bverse and master terminology, sales processes, and working across teams.

• Module 2: you’ll learn how to become your customer's psychologist and understand them deeply with buyer personas that allow you to craft effective messaging.

• Module 3: you’ll master the B2B funnel and learn how to think like a CEO to identify performance bottlenecks and convert more leads into revenue.

• Module 4: you’ll learn how to put it all together and build your go-to-market strategy that gets your ad in front of your dream buyers and converts attention.

‍

This course was designed for absolute beginners in mind.

Accelerate your learning curve and start the course today for free.