Pauline E. Ranger Once upon a time, the person to whom you sold your product influenced everything from how to price and distribute them to how to market them.
The starting line for just about any company’s go-to-market strategy was to figure out whether it’s a business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), or business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) firm.
You might have noticed that the past tense was used. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed business as it has nearly every other aspect of life.
And now, regardless of whether your company slots into the B2B, B2C, or B2B2C category, the truth is that you’re actually in the B2P–business-to-people–business.
Now is the time to learn what this means and how to take action.
“Those who engage in B2P marketing approach their business customers not as mere organizations, but as individual people with unique wants, expectations, and tastes,” according to Marketing-Schools.org.
An article in MediaPost explains that B2P marketing means you have to accept the fact that your target audience is not buying what you are trying to sell. Individual decision-makers–people- are making decisions for their businesses, not impersonal companies as a group.
We live and work in the same place.
Imagine how quickly the pandemic broke down the barriers between “at-home” and “business personas.” The office is no longer the place to work. Instead, people are working at home, “zooming in” from their living room, spare room or kitchen table. Likely, the person who approves a $100,000 enterprise-level software purchase will also support her family’s streaming movies on the same day. She could do both in the same room of her home, wearing similar casual clothes.
It was easier to classify the way we viewed these people, even though it has always been true that people are responsible for purchasing decisions: as either a representative of a company or as an individual representing themselves or their family. We treated these purchase decisions differently.
How do you navigate a world where B2P distinctions are no longer the same?
Rewrite the song, not just your tone
reports in an article from The Drum that “Earlier in this pandemic, cause-related or mission-based marketing messages were surging,” according to a March 2020 IAB [Interactive Advertising Bureau] poll. As the months pass and the societal divide on issues ranging from mask-wearing to social justice grows, #InThisTogether slogans are no longer as effective as they were at the beginning of the pandemic.
Do not rely on platitudes, but rather, find out how your clients, prospects, colleagues, and partners are coping with current challenges. Focus on people, not their roles or previous impressions.
Find out what your customers want.
As Liz Hayward, Amito, writes: Think human to human over B2B. People crave connection. It’s time for marketers and business experts to work together to develop technical content that will make an immediate difference to your audience. Take the time to learn what your audience needs and provide solutions for those complex problems and challenges.
Find out what your customers really want from you. Talk to them. You can ask them questions. Listen to what they have to say.
Listening to the real needs of your customers at the moment is essential for developing new strategies.
Give more, sell less.
Many of your best customers aren’t purchasing right now. Budgets are frozen, and cash is being saved. Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing advises in Engagio’s article to “Invest in your relationship, lean on building value, and give generously.”
And communicate–sincerely, strategically, and at a pace that makes sense for your audiences.
The Marketing Practice CMO, David van Schaick, writes, “Our, communications have been more immediate since the coronavirus started.” “We seem to all be a little more down-to earth and I hope that we can hold onto this.” It’s okay to be blunt, even if your child interrupts your video call.
Be Real
Van Schaick says, “I believe we have discarded the idea of thought leadership because it now appears a bit pompous.” “We replaced it with usefulness, utility, and connecting with people. We offer them something of value. We entertain them. Anyone in the communication game will find this liberating. It’s now OK not to have a didactic “message” in every communication.
