B2B
The future is
connected.
Oliver Budworth
Head of Strategy
The Croc
thecroc.com

B2B: The future is connected
In the world of consumer
marketing, the relationship
between advertiser and customer
is almost always an individual one.
The advertiser speaks to you
directly, attempting to convince
you why you simply can’t afford to
miss out on the latest pair of
sneakers, a smarter new bank
account, or even the latest 5G
mobile phone.
It works because you’re your own
master; you call the shots, you hold
the purse strings, and ultimately,
you decide.
Consumer advertising is also all
about instant gratification. if you
see something you like, you can go
online and buy it that second, or,
(in normal circumstances) you can
jump in your car and drive to your
nearest store.
B2B rarely, if ever works like this.

It’s nothing personal
Let’s also chat about the myth of
the B2B customer.
Rarely, if ever, is the B2B customer
just one person. Instead, it makes
more sense to think about B2B
customers as a ‘buying unit’, a
group composed of many people,
all able to influence the purchase
decision in a variety of ways.
Gartner research indicated the
buying unit to typically comprise of
6-10 people.
However, our own research
conducted in 2019 found the
buying unit in some enterprise
businesses can even comprise
hundreds of people, all playing
different roles in the lengthy
process of procuring a new
solution.

Buying at the speed of… paint drying
Although occasionally you can buy
and deploy a solution in an instant,
like Cisco Webex, the majority of
enterprise purchases take weeks,
months, sometimes even years.
While there could be a myriad of
factors affecting this, typically, it
comes down to three things:
1. The time taken for the due
diligence to find, assess and
procure something new
2. The number of stakeholders
involved in the decision
3. The financial cost - and impact
These variables shouldn’t be
underestimated, nor should they be
taken lightly. B2B buying is a
serious business, often with serious
numbers involved in every sense.
That’s why marketing in B2B has
to work differently.

5
Marketing
is selling.
Sounds obvious doesn’t it?
But it’s a point often forgotten
or ignored today.

Marketing is selling
Whatever you might believe, the objective of all marketing is to sell.
Whether that’s through brand building that lends a business a distinctive
and memorable voice, or even simply a hard sell, at its core, marketing is
designed to convert demand into action.
In B2B, this usually entails leads, enquiries, and registrations all of which are
paramount to a conversion.
This means while it may be simple in the modern era to get communications
in front of the right people in an instant, in B2B getting them to buy is
anything but.

The journey is often long and complex
To explain why this might be, just think about the buying process in B2B, it
looks something like this:
1. Need to change
identified within the
enterprise (e.g.
from CIO or annual
employee survey)
Time
2. Project initiated
and project team
assembled
(champions / core
buying unit)
3. Research
conducted (market
/ competitor /
vendor/partner
identification)
4. Business case
created to gain
internal buy-in /
proof of concept
developed
5. Due diligence, risk
assessment, trial,
financial buy-in
6. Purchase and
implementation
Business
journey
stage

The roles involved are many
And it only gets more complex from here. The various departments within
the business all influence the process in different ways, dipping in and out
through the purchase journey to fulfil often competing remits and roles:
IT
CXO
HR
Finance
Programme Mgmt.
Consultant
1. Need to change
identified within the
enterprise (e.g.
from CIO or annual
employee survey)
Time
2. Project initiated
and project team
assembled
(champions / core
buying unit)
3. Research
conducted (market
/ competitor /
vendor/partner
identification)
4. Business case
created to gain
internal buy-in /
proof of concept
developed
5. Due diligence, risk
assessment, trial,
financial buy-in
6. Purchase and
implementation
Business
journey
stage

Tens, sometimes hundreds of people
While as Gartner identified, this could be as simple as a group of six people,
in large enterprises, it’s often many, many more.
Suddenly, you haven’t just got a group of people, you’ve got a group of
opinions, creating a tense interplay between the objective and the subjective.
In practice, this means that although tactical sales messaging can help play a
role in prompting people to act, really, it’s what’s in people’s heads that they
lean on – their thoughts, feelings and core beliefs.
IT
CXO
HR
Finance
Programme Mgmt.
Consultant

The power of brand salience
Fundamentally, it’s the emotive
context that ultimately leads to
conversions, which is why brand
building in B2B so important, yet so
few B2B businesses properly invest
in brand building.
As the following chart from
Tom Roach shows, it’s been
proven that the type of marketing
that helps businesses grow is one
that takes a balanced approach,
seamlessly blending brand building
with sales activation:
The Wrong and the Short of it – Tom Roach

Yet, despite the evidence, it’s hard to name more
than a handful of distinctive, memorable B2B
campaigns amidst the mire of ‘faster, better,
cheaper’ messaging that proliferates the sector.
Volvo Trucks - The Epic Split featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme

Customer first?
While many businesses champion
being customer-centric, or
customer-first, the marketing they
develop says otherwise.
I’d be hard-pressed to find a single
person who would honestly claim
to get excited about seeing a
picture of a server, fibre optic
cables, buildings or yet another
picture of business people doing
things (ironically usually smiling,
though the communication hasn’t a
hope in hell of provoking such a
reaction in its audience). Images sourced from Unsplash

Yet these are the images that dominate the world of
B2B. Because that’s what people in B2B want, right?
Hint; while boring people into submission could well
be a strategy, it’s not a good one.
Image sourced from Unsplash

Context is everything
In marketing, whether you’re conducting research, developing a strategy, or
planning a campaign it’s always useful to start outside in.
Understanding category and wider-cultural context is invaluable when it
comes to defining how to communicate a business, or a product or service
to a group of people.
The three inner rings represent the different ways
a business can typically communicate what it is,
what it does and what it sells.
The two outer rings represent everything else
going on that relates to the business.
Culture
Category
Company
Solutions
Products
The Croc: Connected Customer Framework, comms component

Image sourced from Unsplash
Bring the
outside
world in.
If you really care about the
people whose attention
you’re trying to get.

Bring the outside world in
In marketing and advertising, it’s
all-too-easy to get caught in a
bubble where groupthink becomes
a dominant force and collectively
you fail to understand contrarian
views and opinions.
Not everyone lives in a city, or has
easy access to public transport, or
good internet connectivity. Not
everyone cares about your brand in
the way you do – or even, cares
about brands at all (hint; most
people don’t think about or care
about most brands at all, ever).
Image sourced from Unsplash

Make culture your priority
Make it your purpose to bring the
outside in and you’ll ensure your
marketing isn’t tone-deaf to what’s
going on in the world.
Suddenly you’ll start to see new
opportunities and richer
territories to develop marketing
communications from.
One of our talented team of
strategists, Flora McKaig, runs
Culture Call – a monthly
discussion exploring wider culture,
such as celebrity, conspiracy
theory, and tradition and rituals.
Image sourced from Unsplash

18
B2B & B2C -
a false
dichotomy?
They’re more similar than
you’d like to think.

Just because the way people buy in B2C differs from
how they buy in B2B, doesn’t mean ignoring the
fundamental principles of good marketing practice.
Image sourced from Unsplash

Brand
building is
important
It creates genuine distinctiveness in the market,
helping to build long-term, lasting memories that
positively influence people’s decision making at
the point of purchase.

Creativity is
important
It helps businesses large and small stand out and
stand for something amidst the sea of mediocrity
and sameness that proliferates the sector.

Context is
important
Understanding category and cultural context is
key to creating marketing that’s resonant and
effective, rather than vanilla and tone-deaf to the
lives of the individual people it’s trying to reach.

Connectivity
is important
Breaking down departmental silos and joining up
sales and marketing to enable the two disciplines
to work as one is essential.

A bold, bright, exciting future
The recent attention on and
growth within the B2B sector only
serves to shine a light on a year
that’s already looking optimistic
and positive.
Ensuring the right levels of
investment, not only in marketing
but the right type of marketing will
be key to ensuring sustainable
growth for B2B brands – and
creating brands that are more
resilient to changing market
dynamics.
The B2B market is changing. It’s
more mature and grown up, but it’s
still lacking the right investment in
the right type of marketing.
Marketing that’s contextually
aware, creative, and connected.
B2B. The future is connected.

2 – 4 Hoxton Square, London N1 6NU
All rights reserved © 2021
thecroc.com

Where
Fierce
Thinking
Lives.

Thanks and sources
– Les Binet & Peter Field and the LinkedIn institute: The 5 Principles Of
Growth In B2B Marketing | The B2B institute (linkedin.com)
– Gartner: The New B2B Buying Process (gartner.com)
– Tom Roach: The Wrong and the Short of it – Tom Roach
– Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/