The B2B buyers, the B2C experience
There has been a growing trend over the last few years of B2B marketers adopting B2C marketing tactics to reach highly targeted audiences outside of the typical channels.
In the past, B2B marketing was seen as formal, technical, and focused on features and benefits. Often appearing in niche environments bespoke to the business at hand or utilising Linkedin, email databases and Twitter to generate leads and convert new or repeat business. Today, however, B2B marketers are adopting a more consumer-centric approach to engage with their customers. Social media, influencer and content marketing have come to flourish as mediums for B2B businesses to expand their reach and brand loyalty with customers.
With this shift, B2B marketers are creating a better customer experience, building brand awareness, and developing emotional connections with their customers with personalisation. These channels also allow for more unique marketing tactics to connect with customers on a deeper level. This includes creating targeted campaigns based on 1st party data, chatbots and AI to deliver personalised experiences, and using customer feedback and platform data to improve their marketing efforts.
What we’ve been up to at dialect in this space
EXTREME NETWORKS
The brief was to enthuse engagement with a global audience of network engineers for Extreme Networks developer tech
Dialect created a new CTO-level outreach programme using thought leadership content as the hook. Targeting tech experts and decision-makers globally, the podcast and video content series created for this niche audience is now host to a growing fan base with high engagement rates as viewers/listeners become loyalists to the Extreme brand and content.
ASUS
Our challenge was to break ASUS ROG into gamer culture across social media.
Dialect deployed a content creation service for ASUS ROG, where we designed, created and managed content across key ASUS ROG social channels. With this content, we successfully helped ASUS ROG position itself within the wider gaming culture and grow its engagement with performance-focused gamers.
NVIDIA
Dialect was tasked with helping nVdia to inspire developers in order to increase engagement around Nvidia tech outside of classical B2B channels.
Using relevant social channels like Youtube to promote a curated thought leadership content series. This content was hugely successful, driving strong engagement and community focus with the technical depth of the content, achieving 10x channel subscribers (now with over 1 million subs!).
AMAZON GAME TECH
Dialect’s Challenge was to create a brand new community of game developers for Amazon’s game development tech.
To achieve this, we synergised content and brand positioning, then used this to build a social community of game developers to act as a key communication channel for the Amazon Game Tech service. Taking over key social channels 24/7, we increased audience size by 512%, sign-ups on site rose by 31%, content engagement increased by 58% and overall achieved a ROAS of 9:1.
Things to look out for in 2023
Increased use of non-traditional marketing channels by B2B marketing teams to increase reach and connect with customers in new ways
Demand for audiences and competition for attention will increase as incumbent B2B brands use B2C channels and strategies such as social media, digital content and influencers marketing
B2B marketers will be looking to take a page out of the B2C playbook by implementing B2C practices to their digital frontends. Using personalisation, chatbots, AI, and other tech integrations to improve the customer experience - increasing engagement, conversions, and revenue.
The use of video marketing will continue to rise. As one of the most effective ways to engage customers and communicate complex ideas online along with the high number of individuals using platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and TikTok, B2B businesses can now reach a wider audience than ever before.
As AI uptake increases exponentially, it is enabling B2B businesses to adopt B2C marketing tactics easier by providing them with tools and capabilities to better understand and engage with their customers.
Where the line between B2B and B2C marketing will stop being definitive is largely unknown. But, as we have seen and continue to see, the line is becoming increasingly blurred and may eventually become unrecognisable. As traditional B2B businesses start to see the power of personalisation, AI and content as a use-case to enhance their ability to communicate with potential customers across typical B2C channels, the benefits speak for themselves. At Dialect, having worked across numerous briefs for B2B marketing teams, we can see how bridging the divide and employing B2C tactics can have a long and meaningful impact on customer perceptions and engagement now and for years to come.
If you would like to discover more about our integrated approach and work together on a project, get in touch.
