Emotions move even in B2B

Companies don't buy but individuals do

In B2C marketing, it has long been recognized that the key to winning customers' hearts and minds is to create a connection between the brand and the customer's sense of self-worth. Successful brands like Apple and Nike reinforce the positive image of their customers. In B2B marketing, on the other hand, people still shy away from addressing customers on the emotional track. Instead, the idea still prevails that one prefers to sell with rational arguments, preferably with figures that prove benefits and possible value increases for the buying company. This is why, until recently, B2B marketers paid little attention to the individual psychological motives of their buyers. Only very slowly is the realization taking hold that it is not companies that buy, but individuals.

Study by CEB and Google on the rational decision maker thesis

Because they doubted the thesis of the purely rational decision maker in B2B, Google's B2B management teamed up with CEB, by their own admission the leading U.S. membership consultancy, to conduct a major study of 4,000 people involved in business buying decisions. (See also our post: Emotion instead of Promotion from summer 2014). The results of the study have now been published in the Harvard Business Review .

An advocate/mobilizer is needed in decision-making bodies

The Google/CEB study shows that understanding and addressing the personal motives of the key decision-makers in a company's purchasing process (especially those motives related to self-esteem) is at least as important as the factual arguments used to convince them of the superiority of the solution offered. In fact, the consideration of personal motives is becoming more and more important. Today, an average of 5-6 people from different departments in a company are already involved in a purchasing decision, mostly with different interests. In order to reconcile them, it is advisable to find an "advocate" in a customer company who represents the interests of the seller. CEB calls these people "mobilizers".

Argumentation with personal psychological benefit brings the most

In their study, the CEB looked for what might motivate a customer to take on this role of "mobilizer" and found essentially three different motivating value propositions:

• the benefit for the company,
• the professional, professional benefit and
• the individual personal benefit, called identity benefit.

Benefits for the company include all the points with which the offer helps the customer to achieve his company goals more easily, e.g.: more sales, lower costs or an improved customer loyalty. The professional benefits are improvements or facilitations for the productivity of the individual that are achieved through the offer, for example, when work processes can be optimized. Identity benefits describe the aspects of an offer that can be used to change a decision maker's self-perception: for example, pride and respect and recognition and also acceptance in the community.

The analysis of which value proposition (company, profession, identity) generates the highest probability of someone becoming a supplier's internal advocate yielded the following clear, illuminating results:

Offers with strong company benefit promises do not necessarily inspire company employees to become a supplier advocate. Offers that argue professional benefits do encourage customer employees to become a bit more of a "mobilizer," but the effect is not particularly strong. However, the offers that promise personal benefits to the customer by boosting the customer's self-esteem have a very strong effect and cause many to become supplier advocates.

The most effective way to attract internal "advocates" / "mobilizers" therefore requires, in addition to the rational arguments about benefits for the company and the purely professional benefits for the user, to emphasize those points that bring personal psychological identity benefits to the decision maker: Pride, recognition and a sense of belonging in their organization.

Our campaigns for Magirus and for Messring both leverage these insights:

Recognition and respect for firefighters makes them advocates for the Magirus brand

Magirus addresses the firefighters in a very emotional way and pays tribute to them and shows them the utmost respect. It is true that they are not usually the ultimate decision-makers for the purchase of a fire truck; those are the number-oriented treasurers in the municipalities. But fire department commanders and their teams strongly influence the decision to purchase a provider, either directly or through the public.

Pride in meaningful projects and cooperation with premium provider bring Messring success

At Messring, a provider of Crahtest Facilities, we have created a top brand out of a hidden champion through the company's new high-quality emotional image, which also focuses on the social task of improving safety, thus putting the company on a par with all premium car manufacturers. Employees at customers can now be truly proud to work on such meaningful projects with such a provider. They can feel both safer and better. The extraordinary results (multiplication of sales and access to all top customers) confirm the correctness of this approach.