No customer likes it when you treat them just as a lead. Facts or features of the products associated with the corporate tone isn’t valuable in today’s world. Business to consumer brands (B2C) have realized this truth long ago and learned to speak to the audience with a human touch. Slowly, B2B companies are also trying to get into the same track as they don’t want to lose their customers with boring strategies.
As millennials constitute the majority of the globe, using transactional terms or sales talk commonly used in B2B makes them feel impersonal and fail to gain their trust. The old strategies which once felt professional are losing its spark now. So, to win back their faith, the B2B firms need to follow the path of B2C and humanize their promotional approach.
Tell Brand Stories – Both Success & Failure
Who doesn’t like listening to stories? Everybody does! B2C has used this element to please the customers by giving an inside perspective on the brand in the form of compelling stories. It’s time for B2B giants to embrace this approach. Brands of every size and type can entertain their customers and prospects through this age-old method of storytelling. It is because customers want to know and experience the brand’s personality.
But the question is – how to tell your brand story to the customers in this digital age? It’s simple and pretty straightforward. Know your audience, know what story they would like to hear, craft a fantastic content, and include all the necessary elements, take help of designers to make it visually appealing, establish call-to-action buttons in the appropriate position, post it on various channels, and start sharing!
Storytelling is the perfect platform to make your brand shine among others. So, use it wisely and bring your business in front of the leads.
Drive Compassion to Engage the Users
Compassion allows humans to feel, share as well as react. So, why not drive it to make your brand humanized? Your brand will ultimately stand a great chance to connect with the audience. It opens up a two-way conversation with prospects as opposed to old B2B way of talking to them. Identify the buyer’s persona and their stage in the buying journey. Drill down further and understand them on a more personal level. Invest some time and make it a part of your campaign plan. Once you gather all the required data about your target audience, you are all set to go.
Create content that evokes empathy among the prospects, and inspires them to buy from you. It can either be in the form of article, video, or podcasts, try to offer your brand’s insight honestly. You can show them more about your company such as behind the scenes of the business, or funny and relatable side of your employees. It helps businesses to engage the users more confidently.
Stop Sugarcoating and Be More Transparent
If you don’t want to generate distrust and make your prospects less likely to commit to your brand, you should follow transparency in the business actions. The more you hide your negative side, the more they withdraw from your product and thereby slow down the purchase process altogether. So, try to offer balanced and non-biased feedback. Most of the companies don’t like to expose low user ratings for fear of losing their spot to the competitors. But, it’s a whole different story in B2B as these tactics may likely backfire when least expected.
Most of today’s buyers are millennials who generally share and access every detail online. Every information is available to them right in the doorstep. They prefer case studies that don’t speak sales but provide a complete picture of their brand, including good, and unpleasant experiences. Therefore, exaggerating the product with highly impressive statements will not help any B2B brand. With transparent and balanced strategy, you will generate more trust and confidence among the buyers. It helps to foster a long-lasting relationship with them.
Personalize your Way of Marketing
Make sure every touch point with the customer is personalized if you wish to humanize your brand. You can use remarketing strategy and send valuable contents based on what users viewed earlier or try writing contents with personality. It includes addressing the person directly in every email with their name or using pronouns like “you” instead of “I”. Also, while writing the blog, use the same tactic. Instead of using big words that are hard to understand, use something which users can quickly grasp. Try bringing in wit, humor, and emotion to your content.
These personality injected posts may vary depending on the writing style of the content creators. But, that’s okay because your brand need not stick to any specific content rule or voice. Likewise, ensure that your homepage contents are not generic. Try to come up with the unique copy for landing pages that users enjoy reading. Connection on a deeper level with the audience makes them feel appreciated and adds a human element to your brand.
Take Away
B2B marketing was relying on facts before. But now they are trying to bring some changes in their business approaches as they learned it rarely makes a lasting impression in the minds of the users. Therefore, to be successful in business endeavors, one need to tell stories. Take inspiration and creative cues from B2C marketing, and notice what captures the attention of the customers. Their experience is what last more than the data you own.