B2B Is Cool After All

By Perry Rearick, Chief Editor, Follow Your Buyer

It turns out that B2B marketing is cool after all!

A friend of mine has a long history of working with some of the most well-known consumer brands in the world. He becomes snobbishly bored anytime I bring up B2B marketing.

Well, according to Peter Weinberg and Joe Lombardo, heads of R&D at the B2B Institute, “the fastest growing companies in the world no longer sell fizzy drinks and designer shoes.”

The biggest B2B categories are bigger and faster growing than any of the consumer goods categories. Weinberg and Lombardo estimate that B2B comprises half of the global economy. In the US, 72% of business is primarily B2B and they generate $9 trillion in sales a year.

B2B has traditionally pushed innovative marketers aside and relied heavily on product features and benefits messaging. But this is rapidly changing as informed buyers demand more than a slick sales pitch to help them with purchasing decisions. What they require is high quality content to serve their needs throughout the buyer’s journey and sales follow-ups that are prepared to help them, not sell them.    

This is good news for B2B marketing and sales! If you’ve become bored with producing the same canned messages and tinkering with the font colors in PowerPoint slide decks, that is coming to end. Instead, you will be writing thoughtful, engaging articles about how your prospects will optimize their drug development process or streamline their clinical research to deliver badly needed vaccines to third world countries.

There isn’t a soft drink in the world that can claim to save lives.

So, stand tall B2B marketers, your time has arrived!

I hope you have a great week!