Comparison between B2C email marketing and B2B email marketing

Email marketing is a powerful tool that can help you achieve your goals if you use it correctly. In fact, 60 % of marketers say that email marketing provides a positive return on investment for their business. If you use the same strategies for a business-to-business campaign as you would for a customer-to-business campaign, you won't get the results you expect. Instead, you need to understand the differences and make an effort to make your email marketing relevant and effective. Below are some of the differences between B2B and B2C email marketing:

The buying cycle

The buying cycle for companies is longer and differs significantly from the buying cycle for customers. Companies buy something after they have explored, studied and evaluated the prices and features. Before they make a final choice, their purchase decision usually has to go through several levels of management. This means that the B2B email marketing campaign must offer a variety of content to support and enhance the purchase decision. Private customers, on the other hand, tend to make their purchasing decisions impulsively, especially for products and services under 50 $. This means that a customer reads your email, clicks on the link, goes to the landing page and makes a purchase within a few minutes. In this case, a B2C email marketing campaign with only one or two emails per action is sufficient.

The content

Since B2B buyers have longer buying cycles and demand more in-depth marketing content, it's a good idea to combine ad-free educational content such as e-books, infographics and blog posts with additional data such as statistics, case studies and whitepapers to increase demand for your product over time. B2C customers, on the other hand, want engaging content that appeals to their emotions. We need to find out what the specific needs of each customer are. Provide additional information such as visuals (videos, infographics, etc.) as well as discounts and promotions to entice customers to buy.

The sound

B2B email marketing campaigns should not have the same tone of voice as B2C email marketing efforts. The B2B market likes a more professional or objective tone, based on facts that explain exactly what the customer is getting, at what price and how they will benefit. In other words, they should be effective. Private customers respond to a casual, personalised tone that entices and motivates them to buy your goods and services. For B2C email content, you should use a softer, more caring tone with a sense of urgency.

The timing

Whilst businesses may have their emails open throughout the day and consumers may be working at that time, they may not check their personal emails until later in the evening or at the weekend, so make sure the timing of your campaign is appropriate. For example, business recipients are particularly busy at the beginning and end of the day, so you should send them emails between 11am and 1pm. Private customers may check their emails at 8 or 9 pm, so it's better to send mailings in the evening.