Business-to-Business Marketing.
It ain't serial dating.
by Gary Meyers

I'm often asked to describe the difference between B2C and B2B marketing. An apt metaphor for that comparison would be a date vs. a courtship. But more on that in a minute.

We're defining and simplifying B2C here as businesses marketing products and services that consumers regularly buy. Groceries, cars, clothes, toys, cleaners, music, etc. We define B2B as businesses marketing larger, often more complex products and services to other businesses. Consulting, technology, industrial equipment, financial services, etc. The Puget Sound area happens to host some of the top regional and international B2B companies. Boeing, F5 Networks, Paccar, Perkins Coie, Getty Images, Fluke, Intermec, Robbins, and others.

Back to our dating metaphor. With a consumer buy, as on a first date, one person is typically making the "buying" decision. In B2B there are many influencers, often with contrary requirements. Not unlike the gaggle of parents, siblings, and friends who contrarily chime in during a courtship on a suitor's various attributes and deficiencies. A CFO has ROI considerations. An IT director's interests are performance and reliability. An operations manager has efficiency issues.

Patience is a virtue. An estimated 62% of 2007 U.S. B2B marketing expenditures are being allocated to lead generation, which in B2B requires more sequencing and more touches to move a prospect from awareness through closing. Consumer marketing says "buy now." Sales cycles are short and induced with incentives — coupons, sales, discounts, POP promotions, etc. B2B marketing is sustained courting. The sales cycle is longer — months, or years even. Whereas Macy's can realize immediate sales from a promotion, B2B revenue can lag years behind initial marketing outreach. United Airlines doesn't stroll down to the jet lot one afternoon to see what's on sale. These engagements come about slowly, incrementally. Consulting services aren't purchased with Internet coupons.

Brand is King. We hear it constantly: "Help us tell our story with clarity." In B2C, brand communication is around differentiation and brand personality — you usually don't have to tell your audience what the product is, or does. A Porsche is a fast car. Soap cleans. Beer is... well, beer. In B2B there's the added constraint of defining what a company does. Many have several businesses or product lines that are complex, convoluted, or change over time. Think of the big enterprise technology brands like Oracle and SAP. How the heck do you elevate and explain in simple terms what represents their offerings?

And because a B2B purchase can cost millions or billions of dollars and has to be supported for many years, brand integrity and credibility are critical. We handle marketing for a large technology company that sells fraud prevention analytics to the world's largest banks. The implementation of this product requires touching millions of bank customers' financial data. How important do you think our client's brand integrity is to these banks?

Creative matters. According to BtoB Magazine, 2005 U.S. B2B ad spending was almost $15 billion. The landscape is competitive. Used to be that B2B creative languished in an industrial wasteland. Creative teams felt like they were getting the yuck, the dredges, the "B" work. Brand campaigns were rare. Now, B2B companies invest in major creative. IBM and UPS, for example, have spectacular creative. (Interestingly one campaign that shows up on lists of "best advertising campaigns of all time" was a B2B campaign, Rolling Stone Magazine's 1985 "Perception vs. Reality" series). B2B also provides an integrated marketing environment where there is an opportunity (we would say mandate) to create compelling multi-channel campaigns consisting of conventional and interactive media.

Small size matters. Because B2B audiences are often small (how many people buy giant tunnel-digging machines vs. garden shovels?), there is marvelous creative opportunity to do higher personalized marketing, segmentation, and sustained outreach. A B2B target audience of 1,000 allows marketers to do things that are not logistically or financially feasible in mass B2C campaigns. The most successful campaigns Hodgson/Meyers creates for B2B clients typically revolve around custom, tactile, high-touch metric-driven programs.

The integrated campaign we developed for our client to introduce fraud prevention technology was called "Expose the Wolf." The target audience was the world's largest banks and this offering was in the million-dollar price range. Hodgson/Meyers planned, created, and executed a sophisticated, six-month, multi-piece, integrated lead generation campaign to North America, Spain, Germany and the UK.

It contained data base development, telemarketing, email, direct mail, campaign microsite, Web ads, Webinars, and anchored by a high-impact "lumpy" mailer consisting of a unique sheep/wolf puppet. The campaign generated a 41% response rate. Campaigns of this nature have a certain "buzz" factor and the pass-along rate for this campaign generated an additional 17% response. A similar campaign for the same client into the insurance industry achieved a 14x ROI on a $200,000 campaign investment.

The role of an agency in B2B marketing?
We make the connection. We're introducers, nurturers, cajolers, counselors. In short, matchmakers.

Gary Meyers is the president of Hodgson/Meyers Advertising in Kirkland, which was named one of America's top 100 B2B agencies for 2007. He has an ongoing 25-year courtship with B2B advertising.