by Scarlett Shipp for MarketingProfs
In today’s complex and dynamic digital landscape, made up of countless advertising channels and disparate identifiers, achieving a reliable understanding of your ideal audiences can be a challenge for businesses and B2B marketers.
Many solutions purport to have the ability to break down the often bewildering many-to-many connections into a manageable one-to-one identifier of individual customers. But B2B marketers must still overcome a considerable hurdle: connecting the personal and professional facets of a person’s life and online presence, then tailoring their marketing based on the B2B2C insights that are uncovered.
Linking those two aspects of your audience’s life can transform your B2B marketing strategy by unlocking an understanding of your prospects as people rather than just job titles at an account.
Armed with B2B2C data, B2B marketers can personalize and engage with prospects in a way that has previously been reserved for their B2C counterparts.
This article delves into the power of B2B2C linkage data. It explains how to integrate that data into your current data-driven strategies and use it to amplify your marketing outreach efforts.
B2B2C Linkages: The Key to Personalization
Truly grasping your target audience’s behavior, characteristics, and needs is the foundation of a successful B2B marketing strategy.
However, in a hybrid and “always-on” environment where the lines between our personal and professional lives continue to blur, the effectiveness of traditional B2B marketing strategies is being challenged.
The concept of dedicated work and personal spaces is becoming increasingly obsolete. It’s no longer a question of “work” or “personal” devices, because the two have intertwined in our daily lives.
The level of insight and understanding needed to overcome such a challenge stems from comprehensive, reliable, and predictive data that extends beyond basic firmographics.
That is where B2B2C linkages come into play. B2B2C data and its identifiers are a potent tool that connects the dots between a customer’s professional profile (the B2B side) and personal profile (the B2C side).
In this overlapping digital ecosystem, the fusion of personal and professional data lets marketers understand their target audience in a holistic manner, thus paving the way for truly personalized strategies that are relevant across devices and contexts.
Professional-as-a-Person
Consider the duality of online identities that most professionals maintain. A CEO might express specific business-related behaviors or intentions on a platform such as LinkedIn while sharing personal interests and activities on Facebook or Instagram. The founder of a small technology startup might also be an outdoor enthusiast and a dedicated volunteer for a nonprofit organization. A product manager may use Slack for professional communication and project management but share DIY projects on Reddit during personal time.
B2B2C linkages combine those disparate data points to form a holistic view of your target audience, enabling B2B marketers to personalize their outreach based on who their prospects are, what their preferences are, and what influences their decision-making. After all, businesses don’t make decisions—people do.
Incorporating Linkage Data into Your Data-Driven Strategies
B2B2C linkages offer robust and comprehensive data that can be integrated into your current systems, databases, and strategies by appending your current data with new insights on people and businesses.
By enriching your database with a 360-degree view of your customers and prospects—including who they are as professionals, what motivates their decision-making, and who they are outside work—B2B marketers can achieve a richer, fuller understanding of their ideal customer profile.
Once you have that rich data at your fingertips, it’s time to put it to work in your marketing outreach. With B2B2C linkage data, you can move beyond generic, mass-marketing techniques to personalized, targeted strategies that resonate with your audience on both a personal and professional level.
A full 360-degree picture of the audience as both professionals and everyday people allows B2B brands to tap into powerful use cases, including…
- Personalized marketing
- Sophisticated modeling
- Audience segmentation
- Cross-sell and upsell opportunities
- Real-time product offers
Think about it:
- An email campaign about your new software solution will be more effective if it not only addresses the recipients’ business needs but also taps into their personal motivations and preferences. If you know that your target audience is heavily involved in environmental causes, for example, you could highlight your company’s commitment to sustainability in your messaging.
- Furthermore, B2B2C linkage data can enhance your audience segmentation, enabling you to create more precise and meaningful segments. For instance, small business owners who are also fitness enthusiasts in their personal life and price-sensitive in their professional life might be a segment you identify for a specific campaign.
- The power of B2B2C data also extends to real-time product offers and cross-selling opportunities. Because you understand your customers’ or prospects’ professional and personal sides, you can tailor your product offers to meet their immediate needs or interests. For example, insurance carriers could identify opportunities to offer auto insurance policies to commercial insurance customers, and vice versa.
The Final Connection
B2B2C linkage data is a potent tool that can supercharge your B2B marketing efforts by providing a richer, more nuanced understanding of your audience.
By treating your customers and prospects as people with multifaceted lives, you can develop personalized strategies that resonate on a deeper level, leading to stronger business relationships and improved customer experiences.
