As a specialist in B2B marketing, typically for boring sectors such as finance (sorry clients, but I'm sure that you feel it too!), making a product or service sound exciting can be quite difficult.
It is often hard to avoid empty corporate words such as 'solution' and 'effective' which really aren’t able to capture much excitement.
B2C can be seen in the marketing industry as B2B’s more glamorous counterpart, that's where the big advertising budgets are spent and brands have the ability to push the boundaries of creativity when selling real products such as fizzy drinks, deodorants or holidays. As well as the functional benefits such as ‘tasty new flavour’, they have the freedom to sell you a dream, a way to feel when you buy their product.
On the flip side, business to business marketing has the tendancy to fall into an unimaginative trap of ‘stale’ and ‘formal’ which is easy to do when you envisage men in suits, 60s pre fab offices and boardroom meetings. But as marketers, we don't have to stand for it, we have the power to break away from the 'boring'.
After all, the purpose of marketing in any organisation is to attract new customers... are you really going to do that with stuffy, professional language? Most probably not.
At its core B2B marketing, like B2C is about getting through to real people, other humans who watch Netflix, support their local football team and who like chocolate ice cream. The company you are targeting is not some large behmoth you need to attract with jargon and sophisticated-sounding words, it's the people who make up the business that you need to reach.
If you think about it like that, then the difference between B2B and B2C comms shouldn't have to be so vast.
There are some great examples of B2B organisations taking a B2C approach in their communications, appealing to real people with humour, authentic stories and inclusive language.
Having seen a real transformation in its comms over the past few years, Sage is shaking off its former stagnant and dull brand connotations. The most recent campaign focuses on the experiences of relateable characters with a hearty embrace of humour.
Previously reknowned as another bygone management consultancy, Accenture is really upping its game when it comes to thought leadership.
They use captivating graphics and snappy titles to promote content for the curious on all subjects from AI to sustainability.
Born out of the need for teams to communicate wherever they are, Slack is all about promoting collaborations and social bonding. They could have easily focused their messaging on middle managers who are looking for communication software to make their teams perform better. Instead, from the start they have taken a ‘ground up’ approach to engage all potential users of the platform by focusing on the experiences of the people who use Slack.
Their content is a mix of fun, emoji-ridden conversation starters such as promoting a #woof channel for dog lovers as well as posts which draw attention to Slack in the media and event appearances.
Not your typical dull life insurance brand, YuLife has put engagement at the heart of all its brand communications for both its marketing comms and its app. They feature a range of relatable themes in the form of customer success and employee wellbeing. Like Slack, YuLife isn’t afraid to use an emoji or two either!
As a B2B brand, you don't have to be too ‘matey’ with your customers, feel the need to crack jokes or even flood your posts with emojis for a more B2C approach. Start with thinking about your customers as people who possess genuine curiosity about the world... how will you get through to them?
You may well have a very niche product for clients in an even more specialist industry. But when it comes to your content and communications, think about what you’re saying on a broader level. How can you make your expertise relatable to someone outside of your own specialist bubble?
By making your content more relatable and 'clickable', you will engage more of your relevant audience as well as gaining the interest of new people too. It doesn't have to mean dumbing down your content, but really thinking about how you can get through to the busy people you're targeting, within your small 3 second opportunity, how will you catch their attention?
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