While consumer marketing typically incorporates appeals to emotion and intangibles like status, B2B marketing has traditionally emphasized sales pitches based on product specs, value propositions, and vendor comparisons. A study of B2B purchasing decisions finds that they are often driven by considerations that aren't purely rational ' and that they're heavily influenced by individuals to whom marketers aren't speaking. Businesses are striving to adapt ever faster to keep pace with rapid change, and yet B2B marketing practices have remained surprisingly static. Sure, the tactics have shifted to digital executions, and the use of data has made targeting B2B buyers more precise, but marketers remain rooted in fundamentally flawed assumptions about the corporate buying process. For far too long, marketing leaders have operated on the belief that B2B purchasing decisions are almost entirely rational, driven primarily by product-feature superiority and competitive pricing. However, this...
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