ZoomInfo CMO Bryan Law Guides B-to-C Through B-to-B Basics

If you’ve used a credit card, flown an airline, shopped at a hardware store or had software correct your grammar or fill out your tax return, you’ve interacted with a business-to-consumer company. Or have you? For various companies, the product or service they offer consumers has value to businesses as well. Retailers require payment systems, companies book business travel, contractors that hold accounts with suppliers and businesses require clean copy and tax preparation. But shifting into the b-to-b world can seem daunting at first: Where you once sold to individuals, you’re now selling to entire groups of people. Direct-to-consumer messaging is replaced with sales teams and leads and account-based marketing. Southwest Airlines and Grammarly Turn B-to-C Strengths Into B-to-B Success When we first ran into software and data firm ZoomInfo’s CMO Bryan Law at the B-to-B Marketing Exchange in Scottsdale, Ariz. in February, he was hosting a session discussing how a major payment company functions better as a b-to-b firm when its marketing and sales teams can interact with each other. While there are some key cultural differences separating the b-to-c and b-to-b worlds, Law notes the chasm isn’t nearly as broad as it appears—and that they’re often separated by a common language. Adweek spoke with Law about the transition from b-to-c to b-to-b, the hiccups along the way and the misperceptions about the roles emotion and logic play in marketing reach. Adweek: From ZoomInfo’s perspective, what do you look for when a b-to-c company moves into b-to-b, and what are your first steps in helping them with that transition? Law: In b-to-c land, you tend to not have a sales department in the same way that you would in the b-to-b world: You rely much more heavily on your marketing, your scale and your reach. For any companies thinking about that transition, start with 'Why do we think there's an opportunity in the b-to-b space, what potential advantage do we think that we have, and why do we think we would be competitive?'Bryan Law, CMO, ZoomInfo In addition to thinking differently about your customer, you also have to think differently about how you're setting up internally and how you invest, particularly if you're going after enterprise. Many times in b-to-c, you're thinking about an individual and their journey over time, versus just an individual one time sale. [B-to-b] is making that expansion into a number of folks that are weighing in on a decision. But even as you're getting into bigger b-to-c purchases, you normally have a buying group, so a lot of the same principles apply. We end up helping companies that are purely b-to-c, trying to move more in the b-to-b space, to think about: “Who is your target audience? Which ones are more likely to purchase from you? And then, ultimately, how would you effectively communicate with them across channels?” How much of that conversation should companies have in advance, before they start shopping for technology to link it together or help whittle down the audience? When you're thinking about your technology, you should always start with, “What's the problem that you're trying to solve, what's the process that you want to build in order to solve that problem, then what's the technology that you want?” Why B-to-B Companies Are Investing More in Brand Marketing That same approach is required for a b-to-c to b-to-b transition. For any companies thinking about that transition, start with: “Why do we think there's an opportunity in the B-to-B space, what potential advantage do we think that we have and why do we think we would be competitive?” The way that you answer those questions potentially informs whether should you try and take your data technology systems and processes and make them an expansion of what you're already doing versus setting them up from scratch. I would hope for a lot of companies that are making that transition and seeing the opportunity in the broader b-to-b space, it's because there's something innate in their product offering or the way that they go to market that naturally dovetails into the b-to-b environment. If a company does have b-to-b-friendly elements of its business, what should it consider as the next steps in its growth plan to prepare it for the b-to-b marketplace? You always start with your existing or your potential customers: What are the things that they care about? Who else exists in the marketplace? What do you have or what could you build that is going to be differentiated and valuable? Then how do you effectively take whatever you have or what you're going to build and be able to then engage and interface with that set of customers in a profitable, imaginative and creative way? When I was working with a large grocery retailer, they were leveraging a [customer relations management] platform to capture information about all of their customers, even though it's b-to-c. A lot of b-to-c companies potentially have initial capabilities to move into b-to-b from a technology point of view, but ultimately what you do is figure out what problems you need to solve that are addressed by your technology. So if a b-to-c company came to you and ZoomInfo with their case directly, how would you advise them during their transition to b-to-b? An area where we help customers more holistically is starting from this idea of what is your go-to-market strategy? Who are you going after, what are you trying to achieve, how do you then set up your organization from the collection of people that you have? Do you have the right ones, the right roles, the right operational components such as measurement incentives? Do you have the right processes in place? Do you have the right data that you need to be successful? Whether they're b-to-b and growing, or b-to-c and moving to b-to-b, a lot of times you tend to have lots of disparate data sources and information, and they're not collected together in a useful way. Ideally, you need to have all of that integrated, deduped (removing redundant data) and cleaned. Essentially, an integrated data source that helps you understand the account and the contact level and who you want to go after. B-to-B Firm Mutiny Shows How AI Can Help Resource-Strapped Brands Once you have that, you need to think about which channels are most effective to then leverage to go after audiences. And at the end of the day, you're marketing to people in the same way that you're marketing to people when they're b-to-c. The coordination of those channels and the extent to which you use one versus another might be a little bit different, but making sure that you have the right channels in place is important. Are you actually marketing to people in b-to-b the same way you’re marketing to them in b-to-c? Because the former is typically presented as a logical appeal to companies or institutions while the latter frames it as an emotional grab for the individual. A lot of that is true, and I think some of it is artificial. How Park & Battery Made a B-to-B Campaign That Would Make Saul Goodman Proud Many times in the b-to-b environment, you're going to be talking to a seller. So you're trying to drive people through a forum or a demo. In the b-to-c space, you're trying to drive a trial, but you also do that in b-to-b. You’re using many of the same channels: B-to-b will advertise on LinkedIn, where b-to-c wouldn’t necessarily do that, but increasingly b-to-b is trying to take more advantage of b-to-c channels like TikTok, Instagram and Snap. There is research that shows people are oversimplifying by assuming that if you're b-to-c you're making emotional decisions and b-to-b you're making rational decisions. That research suggests that in b-to-b, you are making emotional decisions, and you are covering that decision with a rational explanation. There's a lot for b-to-b to learn from b-to-c: At the end of the day, you're still marketing to people.

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ZoomInfo CMO Bryan Law Guides B-to-C Companies Through B-to-B Basics

While the transition to sales teams and accounts can be tricky, consumer marketing translates remarkably well to business clients

Jason Notte

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Jason Notte