B2B marketing emerges from the shadow of B2C in its own psychological approach to success

For the first time in the five-plus years I’ve been attending, there was a clear warning that B2B is looking for its old-fashioned seat at the senior table. When asked who represented B2B brands, more than 40% of attendees raised their hands – a significant difference from previous years. Prominent industry figures including Dean Aragon (Shell), Valeria Abadi (Globant), Greg Boosin (Mastercard), Karna Crawford (Marqueta) and Sumit Virmani (Infosys) were not shy about making their presence known, and to advocate thorough consideration. a forum traditionally dominated by CPG and other large consumer brands. To give ANA chairman Marc Pritchard full credit, he readily admitted that even his company P&G ended up being a business selling to other businesses selling to consumers, and that not all we have to think not only about consumers but also business customers.

But some B2Bs pushed further and made it clear that it is no longer enough to replace the word ‘customer’ with ‘customer’ to serve the needs of B2B. Understanding how brand influences the pipeline, how the different functions of the customer group make decisions and aligning sales and marketing more closely are key group-specific challenges that the industry urgently needs to address.

To unlock its potential to create value, we must recognize that B2B has its own unique mental model that differs from B2C. While B2C is about influencing the buying behavior of individual consumers, B2B is about influencing groups of professionals to collectively feel confident in buying from you. Building that sense of ‘joint trust’ requires more than just influencing individual preferences – it involves understanding the business processes that individual customers are willing to make to reach a solution that the whole team can agree on. .

As research we’ve done at LinkedIn and Bain & Company clearly shows, far from being the logical, logical and process-driven process we believe it to be, purchasing B2B has all the political and emotional aspects of multi-sport theory. Many B2B marketers and sellers think that their job is to convince individual customers that their product is the best product or service. That is a necessary condition, but not sufficient. The real job of B2B salespeople and marketers is to make their product or service one that is easy to agree on. This describes a different business problem, but one that investing in innovation, building a brand and reaching a whole group of customers can really solve.

When I founded the B2B Center at LinkedIn five years ago, I don’t think I fully imagined that there would be industry-wide consensus on the idea that brand, innovation, perception and behavioral science would are seen as drivers of success in B2B. of markets. What’s more, August’s body as the ANA CMO Growth Council can contribute to the idea that B2B is where the growth in the marketing industry is going to come from.

Not only was that true, but ANA is far from it. B2B-focused events are becoming more and more common. Just last month in London, the IAA held its first global forum on the importance of branding in B2B, Dentsu B2B held a thought leadership conference at Tate Modern and my company , LinkedIn, hosted our first London event called B2Believe. Later this month The Drum will be celebrating the creativity and passion of B2B with an all-day event, B2B World Fest, lit in the style of Live Aid from venues in London and Chicago.

B2B marketing emerges from the shadow of B2C marketing and has its own mental model of success. There is a growing body of expertise and expertise that aligns with a different kind of value proposition from the old model that worked in B2C. I would go so far as to predict that 2025 to 2035 will be the Decade of B2B. And that’s something that the collective confidence we have in B2B as an industry makes it easy for all of us to agree.

Jann Martin Schwarz is the founder of the B2B Center and senior director of marketing innovation at LinkedIn.