It was in 2014 when the phrase “human-to-human” (H2H) became popular. It described the notion that when a company is trying to sell something to another business or person, it is, either way, just one human being having a conversation with another. The point for business-to-business (B2B) vendors was that they had to humanise and sell to the person, not to the business.
Initially I was dismissive of the phrase, because, one, we have enough jargon and two, it’s only telling us what we already knew. But if you think about it, it actually engenders exactly the right mindset for more imaginative and effective engagement in B2B marketing. Because seeing your target audience as a person rather than an institution is a great starting point.
Corporate communicators have known this for a while. They try to bring personality and warmth to the organisation by choosing the right spokespeople, topics the audience cares about and accessible messages. It’s all aimed at building trust, which is a human, not an institutional feature.
Consumer marketers know effective business-to-consumer (B2C) campaigns will appeal to both the rational and emotional sides of a household shopper, for example, and that the more relevant personality a brand can portray, the more likely it will catch attention.
B2B is still catching up and it seems to me there are four main reasons why:
- B2B sales are often relationship-based, which is seen as the primary driver of the deal, so marketing plays only a supporting role.
- The right creative skills and techniques are not in place in the way they are in B2C organisations.
- There’s a nagging worry among some B2B marketers that creativity equates to irresponsibility and silliness.
- Selling a B2B product or service means appealing to a wide set of purchase considerations, so messaging gets complex and campaigns lose the “spear tip” you would normally wrap creative elements around.
The solution is not just to copy the techniques used in B2C, but apply similar principles. You could argue that creative engagement in B2B should be more effective, because the audience group is smaller and you know who the people are, so targeting becomes precise. That allows the creative process to be very focused.
Every business will be in a different place when it comes to creativity and, in some of the more traditional industries, there’s undoubtedly more to do. But let’s keep pushing them into the H2H mindset, using it as a springboard to more imaginative and effective engagement.
Toby Conlon is senior associate director at Lexis
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