The Best B2B Marketing Strategy Is Closer to B2C Than You Think

A winning B2B marketing strategy used to require a completely different skill set than B2C, but not anymore. Thanks to technology advances and shifts in buyer behavior, consumers expect a seamless purchasing experience whether they’re spending $150 on running shoes or $500,000 on an excavator. 

However, while buyers’ expectations have changed significantly in the last five years, the experience doesn’t always match up. Complex sales cycles, disconnected corporate teams and local/field channel reps, and large buying committees often frustrate buyers and B2B companies alike. 

But there are lessons to be learned from the world of B2C marketing that can help B2B teams alleviate their frustration and build a smarter B2B growth marketing strategy. Use these three shifts to help your B2B marketing and sales teams better align with what your prospects expect today and integrate your corporate and channel teams in the process.

B2C expectation: Seamless purchasing anywhere and everywhere — online, offline, from your phone, in-person, with a bot. The store remembers you and your purchases and makes it easy to keep buying, get service, or check out new ideas to try. 

B2B shift: Make it easy to self-serve. According to the research firm Forrester, 79% of B2B companies say buyers are doing more self-guided research on their organization’s products or services before they engage with sales reps. 

How to do it: In a survey of 1,100+ B2B marketing decision-makers, Forrester researchers found that 82% expect an experience that’s personalized to their needs and preferences across sales and marketing channels. To achieve that, leading B2B companies are investing in customer journey mapping and a data-driven marketing strategy, using their tech stack and data insights to create a unified, shared environment for storing and accessing customer relationship information and preferences. And marketing, sales, and field/local reps are teaming up to develop a set of customer-focused KPIs they all share, centered on achieving customer outcomes like improved productivity, ease of doing business, and customer satisfaction. 

Ultimately, your goal is an integrated marketing strategy that connects your digital experience – website, e-commerce platform, social channels, and field partner websites – so B2B buyers can self-serve throughout the evaluation and consideration process, then find it easy to purchase from you when they’re ready.

B2C expectation: AI-driven search provides instant recommendations for any problem or need; no clicking required. 

B2B shift: Use your B2B content marketing strategy to answer the questions your target buyer is asking and build preference and affinity for your brand well before they’re thinking about a purchase. 

How to do it: The majority of B2B buyers (92%) have a shortlist of vendors they plan to purchase from, according to Forrester’s Buyer Journey Survey. In fact, 41% have only one vendor on that list, per the same survey. 

That means if you’re trying to woo a new-to-you prospect with demand gen campaigns and product pushes, your messages are likely falling on deaf ears. You’re not going to win buyers who come into the purchasing process with a decision already (or mostly) made. The time to do that is before they’re ready to purchase, when they’re building their preferences.The way to do it is to run an always-on customer-focused content marketing strategy that addresses the real, specific challenges your target B2B buyer is trying to solve. This helps you win their affinity, so by the time they’re ready to purchase — and they start their buying journey with a favorite in mind — your company has made the shortlist. To ensure that you appear front and center for prospects, this benefit-centered content should run throughout your paid, earned, owned, and shared channels 24/7. 

AI plays a role in this, too. Ninety-four percent of B2B buyers use AI tools as part of their buying process, according to Forrester research; it’s their top source for discovery, evaluation, and commitment when making buying decisions. Appearing in AEO results requires clear, consistent, customer-focused content that answers buyer questions. So, if you don’t start on your target buyers’ shortlist, you can still end up there if your brand comes up in AI search results. 

Again, the key is an always-on content strategy across all marketing channels. Making sure you provide content where you have strong credibility, a unique perspective, and true expertise that benefits your customers is more important than ever.

B2C expectation: Consumers use social “proof” to make or break a purchase decision. 

B2B shift: Know that your target buyer is younger, more tuned-in, and facing more uncertainty and risk than ever. Meet them where they are personally and professionally, and keep it real to win them over. 

How to do it: Most B2B purchases involve a large group of people: 13 in the buyer’s organization alone, plus nine “external influencers” beyond the org according to Forrester’s Buyer Journey Survey. When you consider that each person in the B2B buying committee is relying on multiple layers of discovery, research, inquiry, and proof — often in repeated rounds — to ultimately land on their preferred list of partners to work with, you start to see just how expansive the scope is for your content strategy. 

But you’re not selling to robots, or at least you’re not only selling to AI bots: You’re also selling to human beings. Specifically, you’re selling to millennials and Gen Z professionals. These two generations make up the largest percentage (71%, per Forrester) of B2B purchasing decision-makers, and they wield their decision-making power with a very different set of values and reference points than their forebears had. They put the same emphasis on the recommendations of social media creators/influencers as they do storied industry publications. In the 2025 Google/NRG B2B New Buyer Journey Study, 59% of B2B buyers used social media during the research stage of their purchase journey; proof that a real social media strategy is no longer optional for B2B brands. 

And B2B buyers don’t stop there; they keep going deeper — 63% used Google Search to validate or cross-check information they got from AI as they were considering a purchase, 45% used vendor websites, and 43% used analyst reports to validate or cross-check the info they got. 

These are information-savvy, digital and social native B2B buyers who are making the call on whether to buy from your company or not. Why do these buyers keep digging through all this intel before finally making a purchase decision? It’s the same reason that companies engage upwards of 22 people before they buy: because they fear what could happen if they make the wrong call. 

A joint study between Bain & Company and LinkedIn found that among the top five considerations for B2B buyers picking a vendor partner was whether that partner would be considered a “safe choice for the organization that could be defended internally.” As budgets tighten and markets get more competitive, every purchase faces increased scrutiny. Forty-eight percent of buyers with large buying committees say they involve a lot of people because doing so helps “reduce the risk of making a poor decision,” according to Forrester. 

How do you make sure your business is the “safe choice” that people can defend against all the members of the buying committee? You lean into that strong content strategy we mentioned earlier. That single step can have a significant impact on establishing the credibility and proof that your B2B product or service is the best pick.

Is your content strategy stuck in a B2B silo?

As the business landscape evolves, B2B buyer expectations will continue to shift — and the trend is toward becoming more like B2C, not less. That's exactly why every business needs a full-funnel marketing strategy that meets buyers at every stage, not just at the point of sale. 

The best way to get your organization on board with the rapidly changing nature of B2B marketing is to ensure that your content strategy is centered on the customer and focuses on the benefits and outcomes they seek for their business, delivered in a clear, specific, and differentiated point of view that only your company can provide.