Is the perception shifting between B2B and B2C marketing?
2 minute readPublished 11 July
Most of us working in the B2B space are now settled into new routines: Squatting and thrusting and wincing and groaning with Joe Wicks Irritated pleas of ‘can you move the screen down a bit, I can’t see you’ Lunchtime power walks slaloming inbetween other hour-a-day outsiders Wondering whether 2:45 counts as wine o’clock
All accompanied by the incessant dinging of bells from countless WhatsApp groups.
What, however, is far from settled is how this enforced work/life imbalance will affect B2B marketing and customers’ decision-making processes post lockdown.
Of course, remote working has been common-place for a number of years, particularly for the self employed, but the current situation that could be described as EXTREME working from home is unprecedented and may change B2B marketing for the long term.
The differences between B2B and B2C marketing strategies have been blurring since digital comms became ubiquitous, but B2B has generally remained the more studious sibling to the impulsive B2C.
B2B and B2C marketing strategies have been blurring since digital comms became ubiquitous
Although a generalisation, B2B purchases are often big ticket items that require significant capital expenditure. By design, there are multiple stakeholders that need to be involved in the decision making process. There is compliance that needs to be complied. There is competitor analysis that needs to be analysed (where, often, apples are wrongly compared to oranges.) There is a budget that needs to be met. In short, there are numerous boxes that need to be ticked by different people before final decisions are reached.
Decisions are, nevertheless, made by people. The same people making impulsive choices based on what they WANT to buy, rather than what they SHOULD buy while browsing the internet from their sofa in their PJs, are those that may now make considered and accountable purchases on behalf of their company while on their sofa in the PJs.
It would be reasonable to anticipate that this blurring of the traditional home/work dynamic would also mean B2B/B2C decisions become more influenced by desire than data.
After all, business to business marketing always has and always will ultimately serve the consumer.
