Psychologists have proven that almost all the decisions we make are emotional and we prove with logical reasoning. And if you take consumer brands such as Nike, Coca Cola, Dove and so on they often don’t talk about the features or pricing but connect to their customers’ emotions. According to Business Insider, as much as 94% of the world’s population is able to explain what the Coca-Cola logo stands for. The brand itself wants and tries to be associated with joy and happiness.

However, when it comes to B2B marketing there is a common belief that your customers make decisions logically and not emotionally and that there is no room for emotion. But in fact, many research and industry experts believe that emotion plays a major role in B2B brands when compared to B2C.

How B2B Marketers assume their customers make decisions

If B2C brands can successfully build a connection and sell their products to their customers using emotion, why not in B2B? Why do B2B marketers believe that customers make rational decisions and are not emotional?

B2B marketers often envision their audience as businesses and the funny thing is that businesses are made of people. While businesses often buy the product it’s the people within the organisation who make the decision.

A research titled, “The Objectivity Trap” conducted by B2B Institute and Rory Sutherland (who is also an advertising and behavioural science guru), explores the decision making process in B2B marketing and why current biases make B2B marketing hold back from achieving great things. One of the findings is that B2B marketers assume their customers make decisions rationally and ignore factors such as emotions, psychology and behaviour science that influence the decision-making process.[1]

And this is why B2B marketers need to understand the strategies that work well in B2C and apply the same technique to B2B marketing.

What B2B marketers need to learn from B2C

When you consider B2C brands they focus on traditional marketing and advertising practices ie: focus more on customers, their emotion and values. If you take B2B marketing the focus is on pricing, features and the product itself.

Now, as a B2B marketer it is advisable to consider a change of approach. It is best to bring in the practices applied from B2C and B2B marketing by making your marketing campaigns more customer, emotional and value-focused.

Why emotions matter more in B2B marketing than B2C

According to research conducted by Google and Motista; “Not only did the B2B brands drive any emotional connections compared to B2C brands, the approach wasn’t even close to what B2C has done.Of the hundreds of B2C brands that Motista has studied, most have emotional connections that ranges between 10% and 40% with their consumers. Meanwhile, of the nine B2B brands that were studied, seven surpassed the 50% mark. On an average, B2B customers are significantly more emotionally connected to their vendors and service providers than consumers.[2]

Emotions matter in B2B marketing; because there is a lot at stake for the customers. For example, the amount of risk when purchasing for oneself is different than making the purchase decision for someone else. For example, if one decides to buy an accounting automating software for their team and makes a wrong choice, it could result in tremendous monetary loss and sometimes even getting the person fired!

Common emotions in B2B industry

• Social status: How customers want to be perceived by others
  Instead of making a boring slide deck using PowerPoint, Google Slides could give a beautiful presentation that doesn’t look cluttered and boring. This ensures that your presentation gets all the attention during a team meeting and stands out from the rest. Thus, your manager is impressed and you are happy. Does this scenario sound familiar?

This is the ‘emotion’ Google sells to its customers and it is evident in their Google Slides homepage.

• Trust
  Trust is an important factor for B2B brands. Building trust and providing the assurance that a particular solution is right for the problem is the key to any business-customer relationship. One of the strongest ways of gaining trust is to promote content from your existing customers. And this is where social proof and review sites come to aid. This help in making your customers believe that you can, have and will deliver on the promises made about your products or services.

• Empowerment
  This is a common emotion associated with B2B customers. It is the feeling of being on top of the world and being able to do anything. For instance, Mailchimp’s value proposition and copy talk about how they empower small businesses.

The above are few emotions associated with the B2B industry, but again these emotions differ based on your target audience, true intent and outcome. This is why customer’s emotions are important and businesses need to focus more on it.

How can I find my customers’ emotions?

A research conducted by Talia Wolf, a renowned CRO found that there are more than 235 types of emotions.

Wow! I know right?? It could get really overwhelming to identify all of them!

According to Talia Wolf, there are different ways you can find your customers’ emotional triggers.

• The knowledge held in the head of your founders. (your founder would often know the true intent and outcome on why someone would buy your product. The product/service is built based on this knowledge.)

Customer Research

• Surveys: Talia mentions that customer surveys are a great way of understanding what people think, what made them choose the product and what keeps them buying. Also, it gives an idea on the vocabulary they are familiar with.
• Customer Interview: This to understand “why”, someone bought your product/service. Based on the survey insights you can drill further to understand the root cause that made them buy the product.
• And finally, be where your customers are: This includes review mining, competitor analysis, Facebook groups/communities/books they read/podcast they are listening to, what people are asking on Quora or Reddit. Basically, to be in the world of your customers.

In the above methods she mentioned you need to be aware of the bias lurking within each. For instance, the type of question that was framed in the survey would influence the respondents to choose a particular answer and people who give product reviews would have their own favourites which again would yield some biased results.

And this is why in addition to these methods you need to work on behavioural methods such as heatmaps, session recordings and other qualitative methods. You need to combine both quantitative and qualitative methods to understand the true intent and outcome of why someone buys your product in the first place.

Few B2B brands that play with emotion

There are already a few B2B brands that understand the importance of emotions. Below are a few brands that I found that have implemented emotional strategy for their business.

Emotional strategy from Gusto:

• ‘Supporting the team’ or ‘Being there for them’ is the theme/outcome that is defined.
• On a day-to-day basis, it’s by taking care of their livelihood and supporting the team on their daily routine.
• During the pandemic, it’s by being there even when the times are rough.
• Both their copy and visuals explicitly display the above mentioned emotion.

Emotional strategy from Monday.com:

• They also focus a lot on empowerment on the page and on helping businesses create powerful and successful teams.
• Monday.com focuses more on how you feel and how you’ll benefit from the platform. (happy people are happy after getting work done)
• The variety of colours used compliment the ‘hero’ imagery and emotion.
• And if you scroll through the page, you’ll find they are talking about the outcome of each feature

Emotional strategy from Procurify:

• This plays on the ‘unknown’ factor in a business. No one likes to have ‘unknowns’, especially with spending. So they highlight the fact you’ve finally decided to put an end to it.
• Even during the pandemic, their strategy is the same; being in the know, feeling in control and not losing sight of what’s happening (especially when people are remote).

Bottom line

As B2B marketers your need to go back to the traditional marketing practices that focus on emotion, customers’ true intent and their outcomes. As mentioned earlier emotion applies pretty much to any section whether it is B2C or B2B. The purpose of any product/service is to solve people’s problems and make them a better version of themselves.

Whether it is B2B or B2C your ultimate goal is your customers’ happiness.Focus on customers’ emotions and start seeing results.

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PS: If you want to strategize emotional branding for your product, check out Getuplift