Content marketing is always about influencing people to make a buying decision. The main differences between B2B vs B2C content marketing are who you’re influencing, how they’re influenced and what you need to create to influence your audience to make them buy what you’re selling. There are also a lot of similarities in B2B vs
Content marketing is always about influencing people to make a buying decision.
The main differences between B2B vs B2C content marketing are who you’re influencing, how they’re influenced and what you need to create to influence your audience to make them buy what you’re selling.
There are also a lot of similarities in B2B vs B2C content marketing because, whatever you’re selling, you’re selling to people.
In this blog, we go through the biggest differences between these two types of content marketing, along with the similarities and how each works to make money from content.
Although all content is aimed at people, probably the biggest difference between B2B and B2C is the number of people you’re selling to.
In B2C, your content is selling 1:1.
Whether you’re selling clothes, electronics or even holidays, you’re always trying to influence the decision of one person.
And your content can reflect that.
The sales cycle in B2C is also a lot shorter and much more urgent. For low ticket items, t-shirts, trainers, etc, the “sales cycle” can be minutes (hours at the most).
Someone is looking for a new t-shirt, they find one they like, and they buy it.
Simple.
Even for more expensive B2C items like holidays, the sales cycle is a matter of days (at most a few months).
In B2B, it’s a bit more complicated.
A buying decision in B2B can involve a number of people (between 6-10 people, according to a report by Gartner).
And each of these people is coming at your product from a different angle.
How much does it cost? How does it work? How is it better than what we already do? How is it managed? What’s the customer service like?
This makes the sales process more complicated.
Often, the process moves back and forth as teams assess your product, reassess priorities, and bring new problems that you need to solve.
There’s also a lot more care in the decision-making process (especially if you’re not an established brand) because making the wrong choice of investment can damage someone’s career.
In B2C, the buyer journey is usually a straight line from discovery → want → purchase.
Getting discovered is where the unpredictability comes in.
Your product could be found on TikTok or Instagram. It could come from YouTube. It could come through a recommendation.
The challenge with the buyer journey in B2C is getting found in the first place and standing out.
Once you’ve been discovered, the challenge comes from making the purchase as easy as possible
In B2B, while the “buyer journey” is often spoken of as the “content funnel”, it’s not often that it follows a straight line
It’s usually more like different shoots and branches coming up as more people get involved, problems are researched, and suppliers are compared.
In B2B, content is about removing uncertainty, building trust and showcasing your brand as an authority in your niche.
And the content you create reflects this.
Thought leadership and research reports allow you to take industry problems and reframe them in a wider context, giving you the chance to comment on industry trends while positioning yourself as a solution to a problem.
Webinars help showcase processes, build authority by tackling challenges with live demos and build proof that your product works (by hosting joint webinars with existing customers).
ROI calculators and interactive tools can help justify a need and help your customers get internal buy-in from other stakeholders.
For example, an ROI calculator can help a marketing director prove the financial case for new software to the financial director, who’s more interested in the cost, rather than whether it’ll make the marketer’s job easier.
And case studies and testimonials help build trust and establish social proof.
In B2C, it’s completely different, and the content you create serves a different purpose.
For B2C audiences, content is about creating a need or desire for a product, creating urgency in buyers to take action, if not immediately, then quickly.
You’ll be looking at social media content, showcasing products in real-life situations or building a brand that customers can connect with.
You can see from the Instagram account of our client, TV Bed, that their account is all about showcasing their product and promoting offers to encourage users to take action.
Visuals and short-form videos show off your products, showing them being used and demonstrating their capabilities.
These videos, targeted at the right audience, encourage users to take an action to review your product list or choose a product directly in their social feed.
You can see from the YouTube channel of fitness brand Gravity Fitness how they create videos to demonstrate how their products work, and how real people use them to exercise.
This content isn’t about demonstrating industry knowledge or wider contexts; it’s all about product focus and sales.
You can also use influencer collaborations to tap into wider audiences and build on the reputation of others to build a desire around your product (just be careful which influencers you work with, as their actions can directly impact the popularity of your brand).
User-generated content (UGC) can be used to build more trust and social proof. This works because customers trust other customers more than they would a brand, and seeing other customers wearing or using your products in real life will encourage more buy-in.
And social proof in reviews or testimonials builds more trust.
Ultimately, direct-to-consumer is about building relationships and communities with an audience and turning them into buyers.
While the type of content you create, the sales cycle and the complexity of B2B and B2C are vastly different, there are several similarities that you’ll need to consider in both.
In both instances of content marketing, you’ll need to consider how to segment your audience when it comes to personalisation.
In B2C, your segmentation is going to be mostly based on individual characteristics like demographics, previous purchases and browsing history, so you can target specific products at the right people.
In B2B, segmentation can be more complicated. It could be segmented by industry, company size, job roles, behaviour, intent or even the buyer journey stage.
Both B2C and B2B brands need a consistent brand tone and image.
This is important to make them stand out and differentiate themselves in their market.
Around 97% of brands now use content marketing to target their ideal audience and increase sales.
Historically, this involved brands pumping out as much content as they could across multiple digital channels in order to get in front of their audience.
But as customer needs have changed, social media algorithms now reward content that’s most interesting, and search engines like Google have introduced EEAT signals to inform what content should be ranked, the focus has now moved more to quality content over quantity.
Plus, there is so much content online, brands need to focus on being interesting and authoritative, rather than just publishing.
Today, a high-quality quality in-depth whitepaper will succeed more than an eBook cobbled together using 3-4 blogs (the old content marketing tactic).
And a high-quality video will outshine a series of blogs for a B2C audience.
Both types of content marketing need to be based on extensive research, whether that’s customer pain points in B2B or popular products, preferences or trends in B2C.
Research informs all parts of a successful content marketing strategy, including optimising content over a long period.
Customers connect with brands they like or that match their own beliefs.
But you shouldn’t just let your brand blow with the wind, as you could come across as inauthentic.
Instead, pick areas you want your business to stand for, and your audience will come to you.
As you start to do more content marketing, you’ll quickly see what type of content, or what topics, resonate the most with your audience.
Focus on finding these topics and content types so you’re spending more time on the content that works.
Content marketing generates all kinds of data.
From website traffic and sources to engagement and conversion points, as a content marketer, all this data can help inform your ongoing strategy.
At Paramount Digital, we’re a content marketing agency that works with a number of B2B and B2C businesses.
We’re experienced in delivering personalised campaigns that drive interest, get engagement and encourage conversions.
If you want to start seeing better results, get in touch and claim your strategy session.
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