Why an emotional approach in B2B marketing works

While a B2B marketer aims to reach corporations, rather than individuals, it is important to remember that buying decisions are still made by the latter.

The biggest mistake a B2B marketer could make is believing that his or her target audience is only interested in functionality and that their purchase decision is purely rational.

Ahead of Marketing magazine's inaugural B2B Marketing conference next week, Melanie Vala, head of web marketing for Asia Pacific at accounting software giant Intuit, talks about using the appropriate approach.

Marketing: Is the emotional approach to marketing  needed when it comes to business transactions?

Vala: Yes. With today’s cluttered life of media, social media and bombardment of messages, an emotional connection with a target customer is even more important, especially in a work environment where their ‘purchase decision’ will potentially have an impact on their professional lives.  I recently read a survey commissioned by Google and CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council, which stated that B2B purchasers are almost 50% more likely to buy a product or service when they see personal value, such as opportunity for career advancement or confidence and pride in their choice  (see the CEB 2009 Customer Experience Survey). Additionally, B2B customers have even more choice these days and with social media the ability to connect more closely with brands/vendors.

Marketing: How does an emotional approach to marketing differ for B2B brands as opposed to consumer brands?

Vala: I don’t believe it differs. The foundations of uncovering deep customer insights and applying them across your marketing messages, creative and marketing vehicles apply in a similar, if not same, way as B2C marketing.

Marketing: Tell us how Intuit makes its products appeal emotionally.

Vala: We start and end with the customer. We spend time with our current and target customers in their place of work to get a comprehensive understanding of their business and their work flows. We learn about their ambitions and what’s getting in their way today.

From there, we look at the benefit our product brings and how it makes them feel.  We try to understand the pain they were trying to solve and how our product can do this for them. We identify the emotional and functional benefits we’re delivering, what delights our customers and why they chose us over competitive products.  (Of course we pay as much attention to what we don’t do so well and feed that back into our product teams).

As a team we go deep on what we’ve learnt about the customer benefit and how we’re delivering against that.  We develop a number of benefit statements and reasons that we believe that we are delivering against these. Then, we leverage our digital marketing to rapid test these in real time.  Our winning messaging is then leveraged across our marketing channels.

Marketing Magazine’s first B2B marketing forum will be held on 28 November at Four Seasons Hotel Singapore. Hear from Vala and other senior marketers at the event. More details here.

To book your seats for the conference contact Carlo Reston at carlor@marketing-interactive.com or +65 6423 0329, +65 9727 0291.