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Business purchasers are using more social media channels

Learn how to be strategic, creative and the wiser

By any reasonable measure, business-to-consumer (B2C) companies spend more time and resources on marketing than any of us in business-to-business (B2B). As a group B2C is also arguably better at it as well. So what can we learn from B2C marketers? I can tell you it is not the size of the “spend” but rather the choices you make to ultimately build your brand and grow your business.

Here are 5 of the most important lessons you can learn from a B2C counterpart:

1. Build a relevant social media program

There is still time to catch the train. In Business.com’s B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study researchers found that the majority of B2B marketers have less than 2 years experience yet utilize more social media opportunities in more channels than B2C! In contrast and not surprisingly, 78 percent of B2B spent less than 30 percent of their time on social media as well.

The study also discovered that B2B purchasers use four or more social media channels to monitor business-relevant information and insight. B2B marketers must look closely at this trend and create ways to integrate social media to attract and engage their audiences.

2. Understand buyers’ (or purchasers’) patterns

Once you’ve received the purchase order, how often do you ask questions or otherwise try to reconstruct and understand how your customers made their buying decision? Did they find the experience favorable? What perceived obstacles did they overcome to do business with your company? Did they shop you? How much of the process would they have preferred to do online?

3. Enhance both online and offline marketing efforts equally

As you know well your customers demand efficiencies from you. They will not pay for anything less. But consider this, from their point of view: if your competitors “get it” from an online perspective, the perception that will inevitably prevail is that they (the competitor) probably gets it in other more significant ways as well.

4. Reduce risk by building your brand.

Unlike their consumer counterparts, business purchasers perceive more risk in the marketplace. Therefore, they tend to err on the safe side, seeking relationships with companies whose brands seem more familiar, recognizable or even differentiated. They also know they have choices and rarely make spontaneous purchasing decisions. If there is nothing else to factor, it becomes a black and white issue: perceived benefits minus the perceived risk or sacrifices they will have to make in the course of doing business with you. Building your brand makes you more visible and reduces the perception of risk as it adds many more factors to the purchasing process.

B2C generally spends more on marketing as a percentage of revenue when compared to B2B but guess what, you don’t have to necessarily spend more to build your brand.

5.  Avoid dangerous assumptions about the marketplace

Perhaps what separates your small business from larger B2B companies is research. It is something that B2C marketers do well because they do it often. For smaller B2Bs research tends to be forgotten or cast off as an irrelevant and added expense. But if you have been reading anything in the current business blogosphere you would know that change is the only constant that’s being promised. The problem is not so much with change as it is with being surprised by what it brings. B2C marketers cannot afford the guesswork so if you’re ready to defend and or expand your markets you really can’t afford it either.

We’ll get back on this topic much more in future posts. For now here’s two important things to know about research:

  1. It’s not the “research” that you seek; it’s the insight that should come from the process.
  2. You probably don’t need a huge quantitative study. A small qualitative study, done by a third party, that queries 4 to 6 prime suspects
    in-depth would be a great start.

There’s plenty written about the differences in strategies and tactics that are customarily used to compare B2C to B2B. I have joined a growing number who believe they’re more alike than different when it comes to marketing and branding. Perhaps the currency of social media and the Internet are responsible for what appears to be sharp changes in the marketing landscape.

More on many of these topics to come, stay tuned.

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