The Biggest Difference Between B2B and B2C Content Marketing

Not only is content between B2B and B2C different, it is a completely different type of customer. Niche or persona based marketing approaches will usually fall flat. This guide will walk you through the philosophy, psychology, and overall takeaways you need to know before you start.

 B2B Vs B2C Content Differences:

  • B2B content marketing is more specific to industry outcomes
  • B2C content marketing is less rational and focuses on capturing the consumer’s impulses, emotions
  • B2B requires company experience, B2C requires brand experience

Does the difference between B2C and B2B content marketing seem that clear-cut? 

Although neither of these descriptions is technically incorrect, the more you look, the blurrier the lines become. 

In a video for LinkedIn’s B2B institute, Ogilvy Vice-Chairman Rory Sutherland said:  

In business-to-business settings, you find more behavioral bias than you will find in individual decision-making… fear of blame is more potent than fear of regret.” 

“Complete rationality assumes that when someone wears a suit and sits in a business meeting, they behave exactly like the home economics of economic models, where they are only interested in the kinds of things economists or highly rational entities would consider meaningful.” 

Rory has also released a podcast about the “Objectivity Trap” in B2B with our partner FINITE here. You can also watch Rory discuss the Psychology of B2B buyers for 5 minutes here. In this blog, we spot differences between B2B and B2C content marketing. In addition, it discusses the differences between B2B and B2C in terms of the target audience, content creation process, and purchasing journey. 

Furthermore, it will examine how personalized marketing psychology plays a significant role in content marketing strategies for both B2B and B2C. 

Target Audience

While a B2C marketing strategy focuses on a single customer, a B2B content marketing approach frequently necessitates marketing to one or more people within a company before the final decision-makers are engaged. “We had a strong set of existing tools, but we wanted to establish a central place where teams could easily come together,” Shah says. “With Slack we were able to remove silos across the brand, and that has been critical to developing a sense of community and operating with agility.”

This difference though has a big impact on the content plan as well as the sorts of content developed in the B2B and B2C content marketing – depending on who your targeted customers and the audience is and what drives them to make purchasing choices. Creating marketing personas is one of the most effective techniques to identify your target audience. 

The Motivation of the Consumer 

B2B: What drives your B2B visitors is the value that you offer.  

A prospect will value your efficiency and knowledge the most, and their objective is to be educated and equipped with that expertise to aid them in their decision-making process.  Statistics and success stories are also motivating B2B visitors to share them with their team. Furthermore, you are not just acquiring their confidence, but also their business.  This is why businesses place such a high value on blogs.  They are a component of their content strategy since they appeal to your B2B visitors and begin the selling process before the actual selling occurs. 

That being stated, you should concentrate your content marketing efforts on creating your brand or your company.

B2B Content Marketing Strategy 

In a B2B context, the key aim is ROI.  What counts are the facts, the stats, and the practical benefits you can provide.  The instructive commercials and promotional content focus on the ‘what, why, and how’ of company operations.  In a B2B setting, you are appealing to complicated data rather than emotional wins. 

B2C Content Marketing Strategy

Meanwhile, while tales are highly recommended in a B2C setting, they may also be good in a B2B context provided they are backed up with facts, figures, graphs, and other materials that focus on data and demonstrate ROI.  

This applies to website material, blog posts, and articles published as part of your content marketing plan. 

B2C: The major drivers of B2C content marketing initiatives are blog posts and content on websites. 

B2B Vs B2C Personas

B2B marketing is typically centered on a narrow collection of personas that all value for the same thing. Thus now your B2B content marketing efforts should be heavily focused on statistics, trends, and ROI. 

B2C marketing is typically focused on many various sorts of consumers, even within a small specialty, which means that B2C marketing must account for many distinct personas.  

For example, if you offer protein supplements to bodybuilders, you must account for various sorts of bodybuilders, including pros and newcomers, male and female, young and elderly, and others.  

When marketing to them, you must consider each persona’s characteristics. 

 B2B Decision-making Process: 

 As there seem to be more stakeholders in B2B than in B2C, the decision-making process is longer.  

B2B also necessitates investing time in building a connection and seeking a collaboration with the potential buyer.  

This might include providing several resources, making repeated phone calls to more than one individual within a corporation, or formally submitting a proposal.  

Unusually, a firm selects a B2B partner on the spur of the moment.  

B2C: Because you will frequently speak to the customer, the decision-making process in B2C is rather short.