B2B vs. B2C Marketing Automation

By Reagan Cook

There are over 200 different

marketing automation solutions on

the market.

Most are operating as vendors to large

B2B brands.

53% of B2B Fortune 500 companies use marketing

automation technology, which is around 5 times the

adoption rate of companies overall. (Pardot)

Why is Marketing Automation so

popular in the B2B space?

The short answer: Marketing

automation was purpose-built

for B2B marketers.

Pioneered by Toronto-based start-up Eloqua

in 1999, marketing automation was created

to:

• Help generate and qualify sales leads,

• Shorten sales cycles,

• Demonstrate marketing accountability.

B2B marketing automation expanded

quickly in the early 2000s, but saw little

cross-over into the B2C realm.

The main reason being that, despite B2C

marketers possessing larger budgets and

greater advertising tools, they were held back

by an inability to capture detailed customer

profiles at scale.

Thankfully this paradigm is shifting.

Advances in technology have opened

the door for B2C brands and helped

unify the marketing community around a

shared vision of one-to-one

communication.

That’s not to say there aren’t still

important differences…

What’s the difference between B2B and

B2C marketing automation?

Many of the world’s largest consumer

facing brands are leading the charge

towards B2C marketing automation.

In 2013, Microsoft began using automated

nurturing campaigns to sell their software

products.

This was an important milestone for B2C

marketing automation, because it proved

that the platform was valuable for even the

world’s largest consumer brands.

And Microsoft is not alone. In fact, most large tech companies

are using marketing automation (approximately 76% of SaaS

brands in 2013).

Other early adopters include the telecommunications and

electronics industries.

What is the value of B2C

Marketing Automation?

B2C brands have different set of

requirements than their B2B

counterparts since conversions are

done without sales assistance.

Rather than ‘scoring’ leads, consumer-

facing-automation focuses on building

detailed customer segments to help

brands better communicate on a more

personal level.

At Bridg we help enterprise brands

understand their customers so that they

can build loyal, long-term relationships.

With our platform you can keep up with the

individual preferences of your audience,

regardless of scale.

You can track who reads the most emails,

who engages the most on Twitter, and

who spends the most time on your

website.

From there, they can send personal

messaging to each behavior segment;

disengaged customers, brand promoters,

unhappy VIPs, etc.

If you have a great email campaign idea

but don’t know who to send it to, B2C

marketing automation will provide you

with an answer.