B2B OR B2C? It’s all about B2P!

By Paula Milam

Marketers know every good decision centers on understanding your audience. We talk about B2B and B2C (business to consumer) separately because the roadblocks, environments and complexities can be quite different. In the end, however, the most successful marketing – the marketing that delivers more sales – is really B2P, business marketing to the PERSON.

What exactly is B2P marketing? Think of your audience and create a personal portrait of the decision-maker you want to reach. This is not a portrait of the industry or the company. It is the portrait of a real, human person who will say yes or no to your offer. This person has emotional beliefs, primal and pragmatic motivators, opinions, interests, business stresses, corporate politics and community interests and involvement – individual traits that cannot be summed up in demographic statistics alone. The more realistically you can draw each representative person’s individual portrait, the more accurate and meaningful your marketing communications will be, whether B2B or B2C.

In the past, standard B2B marketing focused nearly 100% on differentiating the business from the competition. Product first! But technology is rapidly changing the game. In today’s connected, digitally-prolific marketplace, things have shifted. Much of the decision-making is made before your prospect reaches out to your business for information. In fact, most prospects have independently researched your products online before contacting you.

B2C marketers have struck gold by building personas and then tracking and using data to market to the individual needs and wants of the consumer. Yet, B2B has lagged behind. Talk to your clients. Find out what keeps them up at night and what their pain points are.Then you can craft messaging that gets their attention and begin a meaningful conversation with relevant content.