What are some common messaging themes between B2C and B2B and where is messaging completely different?

As far as your approach to messaging, there’s probably more in common than there are differences in engaging B2C and B2B buyers (there are more differences in GTM strategy than messaging). I’ve spent a lot of my career in the gray area in-between these buyers, as PMM for consumer productivity apps at Apple which also targeted SMB and EDU buyers, and in my current role working with SurveyMonkey, which scales from a free offering all the way up to enterprise solutions. Some observations…

The B2B journey is a bit different because it can involve a lot of convincing others (those with the purchasing power) to spend the company’s money and resources on your solution, and it’s good to be aware that the internal champion for your product may or may not hold that power, or even be in the same department as the decision-maker. You need to put messages in the hands of the champions that will appeal to buyers, so that they can advocate on your behalf.

Understanding that journey, and who the decision-makers are, can help you customize your messaging and GTM strategy to appeal to all parties. As one example, when developing messaging for our SurveyMonkey Enterprise product, we produce a lot of messaging for IT buyers around topics like mitigating data security risks and ease of setup and administration, because we know IT is going to be heavily involved in the purchasing decision, even if they’re rarely the end user for the product. By contrast, for our self-serve, freemium SurveyMonkey product (which is typically still B2B), our messaging focuses on end user pain points and use cases for surveys — IT isn’t typically in the loop for these purchases, so we don’t need to prioritize those messaging themes. It’s super important to understand the decision-making and purchasing process of your B2B buyers to inform the personas you’ll need to influence.

You might also consider your buyer’s goal when constructing your Reasons To Believe and any aspirational statements. The B2B buyer might be more motivated by driving organizational success (by which they’ll gain personal accolades), whereas the consumer may be more personally-motivated.

What’s important is that as you’re personalizing your messaging for different buyers and buying journeys, if appealing to both of these segments, you don’t compromise your brand voice or tone, which should be consistent (it reflects who you are as a company). Business buyers are consumers too, so I subscribe to the school that advises approachable, friendly language regardless of audience. You still need to poke the pain point, describe technical solutions in nontechnical terms, stand out from the competition, and provoke an emotional response that triggers a buying decision — regardless of whether it’s a business buyer or consumer on the other end of the conversation.

The ultimate goal of marketing is to influence a purchase decision, or decisions. Most purchases are emotional in nature, and many people think about B2C when they think about emotional purchases. And this can certainly be true, but in fact B2B purchases are even more emotional, because they are usually associated with greater risk. 

So regardless whether it's a B2B or B2C purchase, you are dealing with people, who are making decisions that are often emotional in nature. Think buying a car or a CRM solution, not so much buying a pack of gum. So the messaging needs to tap into those emotions in order to influence their behaviors, regardless of whether you're talking about B2B or B2C.

How B2B and B2C messaging differs is rooted in the number of people involved, and the role they play in the purchase decision. Treat each stakeholder in a B2B purchase as an individual consumer, with different needs and concerns, and the rest will take care of itself.

Having worked for a consumer packaged goods company at the start of my career to now working for a tech company, I have seen my share of B2C and B2B messages. In terms of common themes I've seen, I'd say time savings, productivity and convenience are common ones that can easily apply to either segment. It's often easier to write messaging for the B2C segment since you are a consumer at heart so it's easier to understand what benefits and messages will resonate for you. Additionally, B2C messaging also evokes emotion vs. B2B messages. 

Another difference for B2B companies is related to messaging around scale. While that could ultimately tie to time savings, B2B messages often include more language tied to the size of the company or revenue teams. For example, you might message about how your product can help a company scale and grow or you might create messaging that speaks to the scale of your services for companies that care about that. B2B messages also tend to be revenue or profit related since many B2B companies are interested in products or services that help them grow their business.  

Additionally, B2B messages are often tied to product features to help buyers understand the key technology and functionality of a product whereas B2C companies will focus more on the benefits. Even if a B2C product is centered around technology - for example, the iPhone 14 Pro - you'll see that their features are anchored by benefits a consumer would care about. For example, when messaging about their video feature they use language like 'film like a pro' or when talking about functionality like 4K HDR at 24 fps they anchor it with 'the film industry standard' to help consumers link the functionality to the benefit, which is having the best video quality to capture your moments.

B2C messaging usually taps into the personal components and can be more emotion driven. Benefits and value propositions are focused on outputs such as personal satisfaction and somewhat immediate needs. B2B aligns with a longer sales cycle and appeals to the business objectives of the business audience (influencers and buyers).

At its core, good messaging focuses on addressing stated or unstated customer needs in a clear and memorable way. Here are some simialrities in B2B and B2C messaging:

• Pithiness and clarity - so users can understand in 3 seconds or less what they stand to gain from the product.
• Paint a vision of comoft and freedom from worry.

And here are ways in which the two often differ:

• B2C organizations often focus on emotional appeals and storytelling to connect with consumers, while B2B organizations may focus more on logical arguments and data to appeal to business decision makers.
• B2C marketing messages are often geared towards a wider, general audience, while B2B messages are typically tailored to specific industry segments or individual companies.
• B2C organizations often have shorter sales cycles and lower ticket prices, so their marketing messages may focus on immediate gratification and convenience. B2B organizations typically have longer sales cycles and higher ticket prices, so their marketing messages may focus on long-term value and ROI.
• B2C organizations may have to deal with more competition and a higher degree of price sensitivity, so their marketing messages may need to emphasize uniqueness and differentiation. B2B organizations may have fewer competitors and more complex buying processes, so their marketing messages may need to focus on building trust and credibility.