Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

With the increasingly integrated role of social media in business and society, the structure of B2B is steadily changing.

How is it Different from Standard Marketing Practices?

Selling to businesses versus consumers has several huge differences. For starters, studies show that consumers purchase with different emotional prompts than businesses do. Common motivators for consumers can include personalized factors such as impulse or status, whereas with businesses, different individual emotional motivators apply. Researchers buying for businesses tend to hold the fear of making the wrong decision, uncertainty of the level of confidence in the forecasted ROI, and look for a level of trust that can be established in the seller’s people.

Businesses look at the reputation placed on the corporate brand and this drives the actual purchase decision. Companies want to be assured of more than just the calibre of the product, they look to answer “Can I believe in this company? Can I trust them? How will the reputation of this company affect my business?”...

... I needed to hire a new salesperson, and one resume stood out like a sore thumb. The applicant, Ari, was a math major and built robots in his spare time—clearly not the right skill set for sales...

Organizations place far too much weight on interviews. It’s time for the pendulum to swing in the other direction. Instead of assessing how well people talk, let’s observe how they work....