It's Time to Retire B2B and B2C Marketing

Key takeaways:

• The perceived differences between B2B and B2C marketing shapes career paths.

• People make buying decisions, businesses do not.

• Audience-first or P2P marketing always wins.

B2B and B2C marketing are dead. Donezo. Kaput.

These relics of a bygone marketing era have more in common with the Sunday classifieds than the interpersonal digital web we navigate daily.

So why do marketers still treat B2B and B2C marketing as mutually exclusive disciplines with vastly different strategies for identifying, nurturing, and converting prospects?

"You have too much B2C experience"

When I lost a potential brand marketing gig, this was the feedback I received as to why they would not be moving forward.

It took me by complete surprise.

My experience includes helping businesses reach nonprofits, startups, professional service firms, retail stores, e-commerce websites, and individuals. While I never considered myself a B2C marketer, I entertained this feedback to understand what I did or did not say to lead the prospect to this conclusion.

Then it clicked.

Whether it's B2B marketing or B2C marketing, the core principles are the same—creating authentic, emotional connections and delivering bottom-line-oriented results.

What matters to businesses is creating genuine relationships based on understanding audience challenges, building credibility in the field, and having products or services that —at the bare minimum— live up to the target's expectations.

Aha — I hadn't communicated this in our conversations.

I naively assumed people thought B2C and B2C were merely directional, not impenetrable barriers defining our effectiveness in solving business challenges.

The distinction between B2B and B2C marketing continues to shape career paths, often to the detriment of talented marketers. It's time to challenge that outdated notion.

People make buying decisions, businesses do not.

At the heart of every transaction is a person. While we often talk about businesses as monoliths, when it's the people within them who make buying decisions.

As simple as this realization, marketers are notorious for hiding behind jargon instead of connecting on an empathic level.

I've been guilty of this.

However, understanding your target's mindset is crucial in shifting from traditional B2B and B2C marketing to a more personal approach.

An individual buying a self-heating mug on Temu does indeed go through a much simpler buyer's journey than an IT executive deciding on a cloud-based server.

The basis of each of their decisions is rooted in the same thing: values.

And, surprisingly, they often overlap.

The impulse buyer may use price, availability, and novelty to decide on purchasing. The IT professional? Budget, onboarding time, and current/future product capabilities influence their choice.

The scale of these decisions is what's different. One of the biggest differences is the number of people involved in decision making, the cloud company will often have to impress multiple individuals to secure the sale.

This sets the stage for a reset towards P2P marketing: person-to-person or person-to-people.

Audience-first marketing always wins.

An important part of building strong client loyalty focuses on the needs and emotions of your audiences. Grouping your target audiences into segments with common characteristics is the first step to an audience-first marketing strategy.

These personas could be created by first looking at the most common characteristics of your existing clients: What's the most common gender? Zip Code? Product or service used? Income level? Need that you're solving?

How you slice the data can go several ways, the important takeaway is to be confident this first group reflects a sizeable portion of your target or current client base.

When we align marketing with the challenges, needs, expectations, and values of our audiences B2B/B2C distinctions lose relevance. Your approach will always tie back toward more personalized interactions.

Remember, businesses don’t make decisions—people do.

Are you ready to create an audience-first marketing strategy? Let's build it together.