I have a background as a freelance writer in both B2B and B2C, but I specialize in B2B. So one time I talked to a prospective client in the B2C space, and he was like, if you specialize in B2B, you don’t really understand. B2C is about emotions. You have to talk to people’s emotions.
And I was like, yeah, there are differences between B2B and B2C, but not so much on that front. You still market to human beings.
But he insisted and I didn’t have the data to prove him wrong.
Well, I have some data now!
So who was right? And how can the answer impact your B2B marketing?
Watch the video or read below to find out.
Marketing Psychology in the Complex B2B Buying Process
We all know B2B buying processes are complex, partially because we’re often dealing with buying committees. While we develop content to help our #1 persona, we also know that there are multiple other people in the company, in different departments, with different interests and different priorities.
But it gets even more complicated than that, because we’re also dealing with the processes going on inside our #1 persona – and all the other people on the buying committee too. And I am specifically talking today about the emotional process your audience goes through, which determines whether or not they’re going to advocate for your product, because the stakes are often so high.
I’m going to come back to the conversation with the prospect and that disagreement at the end of the article, but I first want to give you the data, so you can take it and run with it.
Why the 74% of B2B Buyers Who See the Value We Can Drive for Their Companies Still Might Not Buy from Us
In a study by Google, the CEB and Motista, 74% of business buyers said they see a business value, but 48% of B2B participants – pretty much half the people – said they haven’t spoken up in their company, even when they’ve wanted to buy a new solution, because they were too afraid of the risk.
I mean, sure, if you buy a $10 subscription to something and it’s not as effective as you thought it would be, maybe the damage isn’t huge, but what if you advocated for a $100,000 purchase and it totally flopped?
That will hurt.
Why Marketing Psychology Matters in B2B: What Your Prospects Won’t Tell You
It gets deeper than the dear of making the wrong decision.
Now, I know that’s probably not you, but many B2B buyers in the study said they won’t buy our products if, besides business value, we don’t also provide a personal value to them.
According to the study, providing a personal value to business buyers has twice as much impact as providing business value to them.
71% of buyers who see personal value will purchase a product, and 68% of buyer who see a personal value will pay a higher price for a service.
According to Psychology Today, fMRI testing shows that when people evaluate brands, they evaluate them with emotions first. So what a brand makes a customer feel is going to have a much greater impact than, say, product features.
Psychology Today talked about consumers, but for a B2B vs. B2C comparison, let’s get back to the Google, the CEB and Motista study.
B2B vs. B2C: Who’s Really More Emotionally Connected to Brands?
To quote Think with Google, “not only did the B2B brands drive more emotional connections than B2C brands, but they weren’t even close. Of the hundreds of B2C brands that Motista has studied, most have emotional connections with between 10% and 40% of consumers. Meanwhile, of the nine B2B brands we studied, seven surpassed the 50% mark. On average, B2B customers are significantly more emotionally connected to their vendors and service provides than consumers.”
It’s important to take into consideration that the study did not examine an equal amount of B2B and B2C brands, but surpassing 50% on emotional connection is at least indication enough that B2B companies could stand out by taking marketing psychology into consideration.
How You Can Stand Out in the Complex B2B Market
Now, some people will buy a B2B product even if they see no personal value from it at all. In fact, some people will even pay more for a product even if they see no personal value from it at all.
But only 8.5% of participants said they’d be willing to pay a higher price in that case.
What about the other 91.5%?
That’s where you have an opportunity to stand out.
Because apparently, according to the study, only 31% of prospects think B2B brands provide a personal value. That means that there’s a gap here that you can fill.
Start by Educating Yourself on the B2B Buying Processes
Of course, the more you know about what goes on in B2B buyers’ brains, the better you can fill that gap with more accurate marketing psychology and nurturing strategies. So make sure you subscribe to this blog, because we’ll be talking a lot about buying processes and marketing psychology in B2B. Plus, you’ll get a newsletter with examples from your competitors (and tips how you can implement their strategies yourself) that you won’t find on the blog.
For an easy way to get started now, read this article on simple ways to differentiate your company and get your audience members to love your brand by speaking up about issues that matter to them.
