Marketing to B2B Buyers' Personal Needs

by Sandra L. Howe

Suppliers, manufacturers and other companies who market B2B solutions may want to address the buyers personal needs in order to boost their bottom line.

As revealed in the article Connecting with Customers Emotions (INSIDER, July 12, 2010), customers buy based on emotion, not logic. This reality, long known by reputable copywriters, is also validated by a large but little-known body of neurological research. Any marketing to customers must address this reality to fully succeed.

The B2B buyer is also wired to buyor not buybased at least partly on emotion, according to reputable marketers and copywriters who generate higher-than-average return on investment (ROI) for their clients.

However, while both the customer and the buyer buy based on emotion, the customer tends to buy a product strictly to meet personal needs for herself or her family. Those needs could be to have more energy and stamina to play with her children or grandchildren, or to experience greater aliveness and joy through increased libido, or to feel younger and more desirable by having fewer wrinkles.

While the customer has more straightforward needs, the B2B buyer typically has a split personality as far as typical buying behavior. This means the buyer is pulled simultaneously in two different, often opposing directions, while searching for the right solution to a challenge. This is because the buyer has two different sets of needs: business and personal.

The buyers business needs are usually more obvious and better recognized. This is where the buyer must consider how he can best help his company to thrive. Typically, the B2B buyer seeks a solution that increases sales, reduces costs, boosts productivity, increases efficiency and generates a good ROI. Enchanting the customers experience can be another business need. Many natural products B2B companies are already familiar with what their target population are looking for, and can market accordingly.

The buyer has personal needs as well, howeverneeds that profoundly influence the decision-making process and can prevent that person from considering even a seemingly perfect solution. These personal needs are less obviousat least on paperand not necessarily openly discussed in formal business environments. However, for marketing to optimally succeed, these needs must be addressed.

The buyer typically has different personal needs. Avoiding unnecessary risk is one such need. Making several bad business decisions can lead to demotion or losing ones job, and the buyer knows this. She thus may be more wary about a completely new B2B solution that hasnt been tried before, that no other natural products company she knows has implemented as yet. Shell back out of an otherwise perfect solution as a result, seeking a less effective but more familiar solution.

Or, if its a major new software program or a new manufacturing process, she may wonder: Will implementing this solution lead to huge deployment headaches? Will other people at the company resent this solution because they are forced to adapt to it, even though it works better than the old system?

Another personal need is the desire to reduce ones heavy workloador at least not add to it. The ideal solution may lead to increased productivity or profits, but may add to the buyers own overloaded plate, making his own hours even longer. This obviously pulls the buyer in two opposing directions.

This split personality tends to emerge only with major purchases or services that entail a much higher degree of risk. Purchasing paper clips, for example, wont trigger its existence; finding and implementing an e-commerce solution will though.

Given the multi-dimensional nature of personal versus business needs, it can be difficult for the buyer to make a decision that meets both the business and personal needs. The long and complicated sales cycle is slowed down further by this basic reality.

Speaking to the Split Personality

What can be done? Marketing materialssuch as letters, brochures, landing pages, articles, white papers, ads, etc.must obviously meet personal and business needs. Experienced salespeople who interact with buyers are aware of the ambivalence buyers naturally experience as a result of this split personality. Marketers can take advantage of this knowledge and create marketing materials that immediately addresses the personal needs.

For example, suppose your senior salesperson said his typical buyer is usually a vice president of marketing who has received a new directive from his boss to implement a major service. The buyer feels genuinely overwhelmed because its such a new, major undertaking. A sales letter to that buyer can start right off recognizing this personal need (to not be overwhelmed). It can then quickly confirm the solution will keep things simple for the buyer, while still delivering the solution.

Considering the other examples, in the case of a buyer who is worried others at the company will react badly, use testimonials to provide assurance of how popular the solution is with people who must use it on a daily basishow easy it is to learn and to use, how enthusiastic people are about it, how much praise they heap on it. Similarly, with the buyer who dreads longer hours because hes responsible for the solution, case studies, testimonials and the like from other buyers raving about how it reduces their own hours and workload provide reassurance.

Marketers can integrate both personal and business needs in their marketing to help reduce the internal tug-of-war that occurs within the buyer as he tries to find a balance between the two opposing sets of needs. This will remove a major barrier from the sales cycle, thus speeding it up and increasing ones bottom line.

Sandra L. Howe is a natural health copywriter who specializes in making high-quality procedures, services and products stand out in the crowded natural products marketplace without violating FTC, FDA or DSHEA rules. Visit SandraLHowe.com or e-mail her at [email protected] .