How Boring Businesses Can Emotionally Connect with Customers

B2B businesses are not always sexy. Emotionally connecting with customers is a difficult business. Boring companies have to bear in mind that they need to still emotionally connect with customers. But if you are selling air fresheners or accounting services, just how do you get people interested?

Most of your inbound marketing hacks likely don’t work how they should such as buy Instagram likes. But the dirty little secret about B2B sales that nobody will tell you is that even with sectors that are as gray as a cement wall you still have to create that emotional connection.

And you can do it.

Think P2P Not B2B

Creating meaningful connections in the B2B space will make your band. Business-specific products generally don’t attract the same media clout as B2C products do. In order to start attracting people, you need to invest in content marketing, as you likely already know.

But you need to do it in a different way. Change your thinking. Rather than thinking about one business selling to another, think Person to Person marketing. P2P marketing is the idea that even though it’s one business talking to another you are still speaking to another human being, with the same emotions and needs of anyone else.

You must think about how your company is going to address the human side of the business.

And addressing this is the essence of good content. According to one report, 94% of business buyers conduct research before deciding to make a purchase. Only the very best content is going to attract their attention. The same generic nonsense you used to post in order to acquire backlinks is no longer going to work in the B2B marketing arena of today.

Speak in a Human Way

One of the biggest B2B sales myths that needs to be debunked is that selling to another business involves a lack of emotion. You must speak in a human way.  And this means that you have to do away with the formal corporate tone your father may have told you to use.

In order to create an emotional connection, you need to speak as if you actually have some emotion in your voice. Speak in a casual tone, as if you were speaking to a friend. Get rid of the jargon and remain friendly. Your content is used for people, not machines, so go out of your way to be real.

Tell Your Story

You likely already know that on the first date most B2B clients are not going to decide to make a purchase. They want time to think about it, including running it by the authority figures within their company. In order to interest them, you have to tell the story of your brand.

Show the human side of your brand by telling people about how you were founded and the journey you have embarked on. Telling your story is interesting and it demonstrates what you’re all about.

More than ever before, B2B and B2C customers are interested I the digital reputations of the people they deal with. They want to associate themselves with companies who give back to the community.

Solve their Problems (Unsolicited)

Problem solving is the main mark of any successful company. You need to solve problems, but you need to go out of your way to solve problems without necessarily making a sale. There are a lot of companies that have had success through making unsolicited recommendations.

When you are talking to your customers, you will bond over the problems you have experienced. If you can provide a recommendation unrelated to you, you have built both trust and a connection. They know that they can trust you to do their best by them.

And they may well come to you to speak about your recommendation again.

Be an Educator Without the Arrogance

Marketing will always include some sort of education. You have to educate your customers into believing that they need your solution to a problem they may not even realize they have. To be an educator you have to do it without talking down to them. Nobody likes to feel as if they are being spoken to as if they are somehow worth less. The skill of successful entrepreneurs is to educate people as equals.

This is why you have to do it through content, so they can make the decision by themselves. For this purpose, you can use white papers, webinars, and slide shares.

Conclusion

The best part about building relationships and becoming a success in the digital economy is that every business can do it. Use these tips as they are applicable to practically any business in any industry.