B2B = Business to Human

We marketers love the term “consumers”. We use it as if it is a foreign species we’ve discovered and are studying in the jungles of Borneo. Yet consumers are us. People. And as one of these people, I know that I simply want to be treated as a person. I think it’s safe to say all of us in this group–people, that is–wish marketers would talk to us just like they talk to…well…people.

Ten years ago, in the first three of their 95 Theses, the prescient authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto put it this way:

1. Markets are conversations

2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

Nowhere is this more true than in the B2B world of marketing. Yet, as marketers, we speak of our B2B consumer as a “target” and classify them based on their title, the type of product their company sells, and on and on. It’s easy to forget that we’re really just trying to connect with someone just like us.

The most successful marketing campaigns I’ve been involved with have been low on the “cool” factor, but struck a chord with the PERSON behind the desk, not the title on the door.

Next time you communicate with your “target” or your “consumer” stop for a moment and remember these words from Cluetrain: “We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings”. Then create a message that will resonate with a fellow human.