How to create your first Webinar from scratch in 12 easy steps!
neha m bhhatia
Business-to-business (B2B) marketing differs greatly from business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing in several important ways. While B2C targets individuals, B2B marketing targets organizations. This key difference informs everything from messaging and content format to lead nurturing and sales processes.
Understanding the Buying Committee
Unlike individual consumers, organizational purchases are made by buying groups or committees. These groups often have complex decision-making processes and multiple stakeholders to please. B2B marketers must map out and target specific roles, including:
Economic buyers: Control budgets and finalize purchases
Technical buyers: Set requirements and evaluate technical capacity
Users: Leverage the product or solution day-to-day
Influencers: Provide input and recommendations to decision makers
Tailoring Content to Different Stages
The B2B buyer’s journey has multiple touchpoints and tends to be longer than for B2C products. Savvy B2B marketers create targeted assets for each stage:
Awareness: White papers, research reports, webinars
Consideration: Product demonstrations, case studies, analyst reports
Decision: Proposals, pricing documents, trial options
Nurturing Leads Strategically
B2B sales cycles average 3-6 months but can stretch much longer. This requires strategic lead nurturing through valuable, relevant touchpoints over time. Useful tactics include:
Email drip campaigns with educational content
Retargeting ads reinforcing brand awareness
Sales conversations to gauge interest and provide guidance
Hubspot Case Study: Developing the Entire Sales Funnel
Hubspot, the inbound marketing and sales platform, generates over 55,000 leads per month for its own business. They leverage their own software and document use cases to nurture leads across the entire sales funnel.
Hubspot targets key roles by creating tailored nurture tracks for marketing leads, sales leads, and C-level executive leads. Content and messaging speaks specifically to each lead type. For example, emails to CEOs position Hubspot as a key business growth driver, while emails to IT managers emphasize technical capabilities and support.
These highly personalized nurture tracks based on lead profile combined with Hubspot’s educational blog and resources drive consistent sales qualified lead growth. The case study demonstrates applying an inbound methodology and seamless integration between marketing and sales teams to conversion in the B2B environment.
The B2B ecosystem offers intricate marketing challenges but great rewards for those who learn its nuances. By understanding key roles, tailoring messaging, and nurturing leads, B2B marketers can cut through complexity to drive conversions. The total addressable market may be smaller, but the deal values and lifetime value of organizational clients far outweigh B2C results. There are great profits to be made applying B2B best practices.
