[Essential Reading] The Theory Behind Successful B2B Marketing

This article explains B2B marketing.
It covers how it differs from B2C, and the flow of B2B marketing in concrete terms.

1. What is B2B marketing?

What B2B is

B2B is short for “business to business”, a model in which companies provide products and services to other companies.

・Corporate lending
・Supplying car parts
・Management consulting for companies
・Wholesaling processed food for commercial kitchens

There is also a model known as B2C.
That is short for “business to customer”, a model in which companies provide products and services to ordinary consumers.

The difference between B2B marketing and B2C marketing

・Rate
Unlike consumer spending in B2C, B2B involves many high-value products and services.

・Who decides
In B2C, the purchase is settled once the buyer, or their family, agrees to it.
In B2B, you have to bring several colleagues and managers with you and win approval from the person who holds the final say.
It is far more involved than B2C.

・The number of customers
B2C is aimed at individuals, so customers are many.
B2B is aimed at companies, so the number of customers is very limited.

・Why people buy
In B2C an individual is buying, so reasons such as “it is easy to use” or “it looks good” are enough; in B2B, products and services are chosen essentially on whether they will benefit the business.

・The consideration period
In B2C an individual generally makes the decision, so the path to purchase can be short.
In B2B, a decision usually has to be checked with various colleagues inside the company, so the consideration period tends to run longer than in B2C.

2. The 4Ps and 4Cs of marketing

Marketing has methods known as 4P analysis and 4C analysis.
We will go through each of them.

The 4Ps: the seller’s point of view

Product strategy
You consider features, quality and design, and develop the product.

Price strategy
You set a price that protects your margin and still wins the consumer.

Promotion strategy
You weigh up methods such as television commercials, web advertising, leaflets and referrals, and work out your promotion strategy.

Place strategy (distribution, or channel)
You consider how to get the product or service to the consumer.

The 4Cs: the buyer’s point of view

Customer value
The buyer decides whether to purchase on the basis of the product or service name, the packaging design, the brand and the quality.

Customer cost (what the customer bears)
They judge on price, payment method and when the product will need replacing.

Communication (with the customer)
They come into contact through events, websites, social media and exhibitions, and become aware of the product and the brand.

Convenience (for the customer)
They judge convenience on how long delivery takes, whether it is sold in store or online, how easy you are to contact, and the payment options.

3. The flow of B2B marketing

The basic flow of B2B marketing is as follows.

　Finding your USP (making your own strengths clear)
　Deciding the persona (understanding your customer)
　Lead generation (acquiring leads)
　Lead nurturing (developing leads)
　Lead qualification (selecting leads)
　Inside sales (setting up meetings)
　Field sales (selling)
　Customer success (customer satisfaction)
　Repeat purchase / upsell / cross-sell (building advocates)

4. Finding your USP through 3C analysis

The 3Cs are customer (the market and the customer), competitor and company (your own).
USP is short for “unique selling proposition”, meaning the strength that is yours alone.
Analysing the 3Cs to understand the strengths of your own service matters in B2B marketing too.

Market research
You need to see the market both from the macro view and from the micro view.

Competitor research
You analyse competitors’ revenue, market share and the strengths and weaknesses of their products.

Analysing your own company
You analyse your own revenue, market share, sales channels, technical capability and much else, and draw out your strengths and weaknesses.

5. Deciding the target persona

A persona is a picture of the user of your product or service.
It differs from a target in that a persona is drawn in far more depth and detail.

When you set a persona, watch for the following.
・Consider whether to set one persona or several
・Strip out as much preconception as you can
・Make it something you can share with other people
・Review it regularly

Here is an example of a B2B persona.

・A home renovation company with 100 employees
・Puts its effort into offline selling, and is not attracting visitors on the web
・Wants to bring in more customers through the web

・Responsible for advertising
・Offline worked well, but the rate at which it brings people in has slowly fallen; they are working on a plan for the web, but results are slow to come
・Gathers information, works out the strategy and seeks approval from their manager

・Male, 35
・Family: a household of three, with a wife and one son
・Annual income: 8 million yen
・Title: team leader, marketing department
・Workplace: near Sangenjaya station, Setagaya ward
・Role: marketing in general.
・Goal at work: increase the number of leads coming in through the web (MQLs). SQLs sit largely with the sales department.
・Obstacles to the goal: offline worked well, but the rate at which it brings people in has slowly fallen, so they are working on a plan for the web. Their customers are relatively old, in their forties to eighties, so they are weighing up how best to reach that age group online.
・Position internally: gathers information, works out the strategy, gets approval from the department head and carries it out.
・Interests: camping and driving
・Personality: calm. Not a natural at striking up conversation, so tends to deal little with other departments. Feels they ought to talk more with the sales department in order to take in what the front line is seeing. Usually decides on the data rather than on feeling, and is trusted by their manager.

6. Lead generation (acquiring leads)

Lead generation means acquiring prospects, or leads, for your own product or service.
Lead generation includes the following methods.

　Cold calling
　Web advertising
　　└Search advertising
　　└Display advertising
　Exhibiting at trade shows
　　└Trade shows
　　└Online trade shows
　Content marketing
　White papers
　Webinars
　SNS
　　└Social platforms worth using in B2B
　　　└Facebook
　　　└Linkedin
　　　└YOUTRUST
　　└Running the accounts
　　└Advertising
　White papers
　Cross-industry networking events
　Television and radio commercials
　Transport advertising

You acquire leads using these methods.

The article below covers lead acquisition methods in detail. Do read it alongside this one.

Six ways to generate B2B leads: winning prospects through digital marketing

7. Lead nurturing (developing leads)

Lead nurturing is the marketing method of raising the intent to buy among the prospects, or leads, you have acquired, and turning that into orders later on.
Lead nurturing includes the following methods.

Email marketing
Running seminars
Reading material such as ebooks
Retargeting advertising
Making use of MA (marketing automation)
　The best-known MA tools
　　Pardot
　　HubSpot
　　Shanon
　　Marketo
　　Kairos
　　BowNow
　　SATORI
　　KARTE
　　Zoho
ABM
(ABM is short for “account based marketing”, a type of B2B marketing strategy.
You treat the customers of highest value to you as target accounts, and aim to maximise the revenue from those accounts.)

You use these methods to raise leads’ intent to buy.

Related article:
What is lead nurturing? Methods and steps, explained in full

8. Lead qualification (selecting leads)

Lead qualification means picking out, from the prospects, or leads, you have surfaced, those most likely to buy.
You need to separate MQLs (marketing qualified leads) from SQLs (sales qualified leads).

MQL
Prospects generated by the company’s marketing activity
SQL
Prospects generated by day-to-day selling

MQLs usually sit with the marketing department and SQLs with the sales department.
Meetings are also generally held to go more smoothly with SQLs than with MQLs.
Because MQLs sometimes call for more skilled selling, it is tempting to favour SQLs in order to hit the numbers.
Over the long run, though, MQLs matter too, so the two departments need to work together.

9. Inside sales (setting up meetings)

Inside sales means dealing with customers by email, telephone and the like rather than visiting them.
Within inside sales there are BDRs and SDRs.

BDR
Short for “business development representative”.
This is the team that reaches out to find new customers.
The BDR’s main job is to create contact with new customers by booking appointments and sending emails themselves, and so to generate revenue.

SDR
Short for “sales development representative”.
This is the team that handles the enquiries coming in from customers.
They are also called the inbound team. They take enquiries through many routes, including document requests and trade shows. Running the website and posting on social media are part of the SDR’s job too.

10. Field sales (meetings)

Field sales means visiting customers to hold meetings.
It is the counterpart to inside sales.
There are situations where meeting face to face counts for a lot, so you cannot say outright that inside sales or field sales is the better of the two.
The sensible approach is to work through inside sales first, then put field sales onto the most promising customers.

11. Customer success (customer satisfaction)

Customer success is the role of engaging actively with customers who use your service, so that they succeed with it.
Customer support carries the image of a passive enquiry desk; the big difference is that customer success is active.
Rather than waiting for an enquiry to come in, the company itself gets involved to solve the customer’s problems.

Customer success roles are set up most often at companies running subscription services, which have grown in number in recent years.
Keeping the relationship healthy turns customers into fans, and you can expect them to move up to a higher tier of service or to buy more.

12. Customer success (customer satisfaction)

Customer success is the role of engaging actively with customers who use your service, so that they succeed with it.
Customer support carries the image of a passive enquiry desk; the big difference is that customer success is active.
Rather than waiting for an enquiry to come in, the company itself gets involved to solve the customer’s problems.

Customer success roles are set up most often at companies running subscription services, which have grown in number in recent years.
Keeping the relationship healthy turns customers into fans, and you can expect them to move up to a higher tier of service or to buy more.

13. Repeat purchase / upsell / cross-sell (turning customers into fans)

Upsell
This is where you recommend a higher-tier product or service than the one the customer is considering, to encourage a larger purchase.

Cross-sell
This is where you recommend something related to the product or service the customer is considering, alongside it.
Asking “would you like a drink with that?” when someone orders a burger is also a cross-sell.

One advantage of upselling and cross-selling is that it raises the chance of a customer becoming a fan and buying again.
Recommending a support service that genuinely helps, or a higher tier that raises satisfaction, builds trust and makes it more likely the customer becomes a fan.

14. In closing

That covers it.
Here is a short summary.

・The differences between B2B and B2C marketing
Unit price, who decides, the number of customers, the reason for buying and the length of the consideration period all differ

・How B2B marketing flows
Finding your USP (making your own strengths clear)
↓
Deciding the persona (understanding your customer)
↓
Lead generation (acquiring leads)
↓
Lead nurturing (developing leads)
↓
Lead qualification (selecting leads)
↓
Inside sales (setting up meetings)
↓
Field sales (selling)
↓
Customer success (customer satisfaction)
↓
Repeat purchase / upsell / cross-sell (building advocates)

Keep the differences from B2C marketing in mind, and build the strategy with marketing and sales working together.

See the article below on how to design the strategy.

The classic approach to designing digital marketing