Selling to B2B market vs B2C market...

[Jag82]

Copywriters,

I have several questions that I like to seek your view on...

Do you feel there is a major difference in that way we sell with sales copy when it comes to the B2B and B2C market?

Will more "hype" and "power words" help or hurt when it comes to
selling to businessmen and professionals?

Will emotional based selling...with big bold headlines...and
"outlandish" guarantee work with the business/corporate
market as well as we know it can with the consumers?

Will appreciate any thoughts on this, especially for those
who have experience writing for the B2B market.

Warmly,
Jag

[Traci]

Power words and hype only work if they're true. I don't believe "outlandish" guarantees sell much of anything.

B2B is is selling to business professionals, not someone looking for a quick get-rich product to collet dust on their hard drive. Purchases between B2B are much larger than a single user buying a product or service.

You have to convince a buyer to make a decision - not only for the good of his company, but for his career. If he makes a dumb move he may be stuck in the same position for years, get a decrease in salary or even fired. If he makes the right choice he could be promoted, get a raise, bonus, etc. These things are what he's thinking about when making a purchase.

So yeah, different markets.

[Jag82]

Originally Posted by Traci

Power words and hype only work if they're true. I don't believe "outlandish" guarantees sell much of anything.

Okay, let's assume there are sufficient proof with case studies,
testimonials and all.

Would a typical sales letter-like phrasing work?

Maybe imagine John Carlton's bullets put on a corporate
site like Standard Chartered Bank?

Do you think it is out of place?

John Carlton's bullets are definitely engaging. But will it
be slightly over the top in a corporate setting?

Originally Posted by Traci

B2B is is selling to business professionals, not someone looking for a quick get-rich product to collet dust on their hard drive. Purchases between B2B are much larger than a single user buying a product or service.

You have to convince a buyer to make a decision - not only for the good of his company, but for his career. If he makes a dumb move he may be stuck in the same position for years, get a decrease in salary or even fired. If he makes the right choice he could be promoted, get a raise, bonus, etc. These things are what he's thinking about when making a purchase.

So yeah, different markets.

You make several good points here.

I showed a John Carlton and Eugene Schwartz-styled
guarantee to a friend of mine in the corporate sector
and I asked him for opinion.

And he felt that it was a bit "salesy". Or outlandish even.

And when I showed him the shortened version,
he thought that was acceptable.

So my feeling is that having emotional engaging
power words and phrasing are well and good.

But in a business setting,
keep it moderate and more subtle.




He also make some comments which I thought make
a lot of sense.

He has this to say with regards to the effect
a usual salesletter-style guarantee will have
on a corporate employee looking to buy a product
for the company...

"Think for a moment that you are an employee in
a midsize or large company.

You do not actually worry about getting your money back,
and that's because you don't pay with your money.

Not only that, but even in the case where you find
that the product you bought does not deliver,
even then you will not ask for your money back.

Why? Because to invert and cancel a purchase is
an awful lot of bureaucratic work in a company and
because this will make evident to your boss that
you made a mistake.

You will simply want to hide the fact and
simply not use the application."


I do have to agree with my friend's sentiment.

The above really provided some food for thought for me.

Jag

[Raydal]

B2B selling is indeed different to B2C and it has little to
do with hype and language etc. The concerns (benefits)
to the business owner is different to that of the consumer.

At the same time, most "corporate style language" are used
to impress the seller and not the buyer. You can get a whole
'sermon' on this from Dan Kennedy and what he thinks of the
typical corporate advertising.

Also a great book to read on this subject is SPIN Selling by
Neil Rackham.

-Ray Edwards

[MichaelHiles]

SPIN selling is pretty good actually.

One thing is to understand that an organization behaves collectively like an individual does. It's just different and more complex.

It all still comes down to the basic consumer behavioral model of recognizing a stimulus of some sort. Filtering that stimulus to where it reaches a conscious level of tension building that results in a tension-relieving behavioral action.

[Loren Woirhaye]

"Socratic Selling" (book) is pretty good for helping a newcomer
to B2B selling get his or her mind around the issues involved
in the way businesses, particularly corporate ones, make
purchasing decisions.

Also "Writing White Papers" by Stelzner is worth checking
out because white papers are becoming a pretty relevant
marketing method for B2B sales.

A lot of the emotional trigger used in selling to consumers
don't tend to work the same way selling to businesses
with a chain-of-command management structure... but
the person making the decision still wants to progress in
his or her career and impress colleagues with his or her
competence, so if you build-in reassurance that the decision
is the right one and your after-sales support is excellent;
which tends to be a much more relevant thing for
B2B sales, while in B2C sales competitive price tends
to be pretty important in winning the sale.

Again, "Socratic Selling" will make you more aware of
the way it works. It's a similar method and mindset to
"Spin Selling". For selling to consumers read "The Closers"
and "How To Sell Anything To Anyone".

[Jag82]

Originally Posted by Raydal

B2B selling is indeed different to B2C and it has little to
do with hype and language etc. The concerns (benefits)
to the business owner is different to that of the consumer.

At the same time, most "corporate style language" are used
to impress the seller and not the buyer. You can get a whole
'sermon' on this from Dan Kennedy and what he thinks of the
typical corporate advertising.

Also a great book to read on this subject is SPIN Selling by
Neil Rackham.

-Ray Edwards

Originally Posted by MichaelHiles

SPIN selling is pretty good actually.

One thing is to understand that an organization behaves collectively like an individual does. It's just different and more complex.

It all still comes down to the basic consumer behavioral model of recognizing a stimulus of some sort. Filtering that stimulus to where it reaches a conscious level of tension building that results in a tension-relieving behavioral action.

Now that you guys mentioned Neil Rackham's
SPIN SELLING, I suddenly remember I have his
training audio course.

I shall take a listen to it soon.

BTW, a few sites I thought have good sales
copy but still sound pretty professional are:

- InfusionSoft
- MailChimp
- FogCreek
- 37 Signals
- Google (their Adwords page)

Jag

[resultsllc]

Originally Posted by Jag82

Okay, let's assume there are sufficient proof with case studies,
testimonials and all.

Would a typical sales letter-like phrasing work?

Maybe imagine John Carlton's bullets put on a corporate
site like Standard Chartered Bank?

Do you think it is out of place?

John Carlton's bullets are definitely engaging. But will it
be slightly over the top in a corporate setting?

Jag

Jag - Your question here about bullets holds the clue to answering your initial question. Ultimately, you are asking what copy will get business people to act, and buy your offer.

The proof/bullets/guaranty/headline/P.S./subheads/bold/underline, etc. are all elements of a sales letter - 'features' if you will.

Bullets are definitely effective. Why? Because they allow a busy prospect to quickly find out what's going on, without having to read a wordy paragraph.

You must keep your copy clear and eye-catching - using bullets and paragraph breaks and headlines - so that your reader quickly can figure out what you are trying to say, without getting confused. (The classic dual-readership path.)

Using bullets and other tools of the trade, you have a real chance to break through the clutter. You'll be reaching a fellow human being by talking to them in a easy-to-follow way.

And one more point, Jag, that you want to be sure to grasp:

From your post, you are certainly keeping your eye on the emotions that drive your prospect. That's important. But also notice the finer points that Carlton and Schwartz are teaching. They are teaching you not just to sell, but to sell with words IN PRINT.

In print, it's the words that you use that matter most. Writing. And writing well means:

1) Use small words. This is a BIG one in the B2B world, where sloppy marketers have fallen in love with corporate gibberish.

2) Use active verbs. It's so easy to fall into the past tense. It is done. It is overdone. And now it has become commonplace. (You get my tense, yes?) Do it right, and move that suit-wearing blob into his manager's office to get a P.O.

3) Use few adverbs. ("Very" is a common offender.) It's not necessary, for example, to say that you were "totally flabbergasted." You can't be "partly flabbergasted."

4) Leave out the the extra adjectives ("This works well?" "This works" says the same thing.)

5) And be sure you address the letter to the "you." Too often, "I" and "we" creeps in - and you lose your reader right there.

For example, here is a quote I grabbed from IBM's website: "The IBM Institute for Business Value is comprised of more than 50 consultants who conduct research and analysis across multiple industries and functional disciplines."

What the heck does this mean? If you are selling to a business person, make sure you don't confuse him like this. Speak to him like a human being. Get rid of words like "comprise," "conduct," and "multiple" and use instead "made up of," "research and analyze" and "many."

Maybe, to convey the same ideas, you say: "At IBM Institute For Business Value, you can find answers to your key questions about dozens of industries and departments from our 50 consultants."

I'd encourage you to pick up "On Writing Well" from William Zinsser - great for all kinds of non-fiction writing.

The key is - remember that your goal is to reach through the page and have a conversation with a real person. Keep your eye on the sales goal - drive for it - but make sure that you write in a way that your prospect can follow - both with the format of the page - bullets, headlines, paragraphs - and with the content of the page - nouns, verbs, adjectives. Sure, we've used them all our lives, and now, we get to raise our standards.

Isn't this copywriting business great?

Matt

[lenlatimer]

I've been selling to b2b a long time - and guess what - they're people just like consumers are people. So bullets, power words, testimonials, etc, all work effectively - if you can solve their pain, they buy. Its just that their pain is different (usually) than a plain consumer and revolves around a business solution (usually). At the same time, they all want a "Business to be Proud of" and to "Squash their Competition until they're quivering like a Punch-Drunk Boxer", etc. - all every day, human emotions.