What Advertising Agencies Can Do in B2B Marketing

In previous articles, we explained how digitalization enhances face-to-face sales for companies and methods for creating customer journeys to identify challenges in business processes.

While these were written with B2C business models in mind, we've recently noticed an increase in inquiries from B2B clients to advertising agencies. In the past, I myself have supported B2B marketing process transformations for industries such as information/communications, travel, pharmaceuticals, and automotive.

This time, we will introduce what strengths companies like ours, primarily focused on supporting B2C communication, bring to supporting B2B clients.

The Typical Project Approach for Advertising Agencies

First, I often find that the initial request an advertising agency receives from a client is typically for a website renewal. Coupled with the "marketing automation" (MA) boom, we're also seeing more cases where clients seek our advice to combine their site renewal with a shift towards more intelligent web marketing.

Generally, projects follow the approach outlined below.

First comes the consulting phase. While most requests involve web marketing, we never propose solutions confined solely to web (digital) channels. As discussed in previous articles, we believe integrated marketing strategies combining physical and digital channels are more critical for B2B businesses.

Therefore, in Step 1: "Current State Analysis," we first identify existing challenges in sales and marketing operations through interviews with frontline staff. Simultaneously, we assess the system environment supporting sales and marketing operations. This is to integrate face-to-face sales activity data with non-face-to-face web data, aiming to provide optimal information services to customers across both physical and digital channels. This process may sometimes involve discussions about replacing core systems or operational systems. In such cases, we collaborate with our group company's SI vendor to provide a comprehensive solution.

Next, in step ② "KPI/KGI Design," we simulate costs and profits from advertising plans through customer management and sales to assess the appropriateness of investment amounts. Including advertising plans in the simulation is a unique approach only possible through our advertising agency expertise.

Subsequently, in steps ③ "Requirement Definition" and ④ "Production Company/MA Vendor Selection," we define system requirements and objectively select the optimal production companies and vendors. For business requirement definition, we also support cross-departmental marketing process design and the establishment of an "Inside Sales" department tasked with supporting sales staff from the back office using new systems.

During the subsequent actual construction phase, we advance the project management phase in collaboration with the production company, SI vendor, and tool vendor. We then support the post-cutover operation and verification.

However, based on the explanation so far, it might seem like this process is nearly identical to that for B2C clients.
Let's now outline the unique marketing characteristics specific to B2B clients.

1. The client's customers are organizations, not individuals.
Therefore, the customer's decision-making process often becomes complex and lengthy.

2.The end customer is often a general consumer.
It is necessary to consider the entire value chain, including the end customer.

3. The products or services sold, along with their customization options, are highly diverse.
Therefore, face-to-face (real) sales channels are more important.

4. Sales activities are primarily outbound, and their efficiency is critical.
For strong companies, how to efficiently manage inquiries also becomes important.

Given these characteristics, I would like to explain what value advertising agencies can provide.

Value unique to advertising agencies

Summarizing the marketing characteristics of B2B businesses, it can be said that the key is "efficiently identifying and understanding customer needs all the way to the final decision, while leveraging both real and digital channels to streamline the long-term sales process."

Against this backdrop, advertising agencies can provide three key values.

1. One-Stop Service
As mentioned earlier, our group includes advertising agencies specializing in "consulting" and "project management," digital marketing companies specializing in "digital marketing" such as websites and marketing automation, and SI companies specializing in "IT" like core and business systems. This allows us to provide one-stop solutions.

2. Content
Since customer purchase cycles often span years, providing valuable informational content can strengthen connections. Offering this content openly can even lead customers to seek the relationship themselves.

For example, a software company providing articles on the latest overseas IT trends to its customers can maintain a light touch while identifying the customer's areas of interest based on the articles they view. However, high-quality content comes at a cost. To address this challenge, solutions like repurposing past articles owned by publishers are something only an advertising agency can provide. While sales negotiations themselves inevitably involve individual customer contacts, such initiatives enable broader engagement with the customer organization as a whole. These efforts might be called "content marketing." However, I often hear that content marketing is often conceptualized without clear ROI. It's crucial to clearly define content's role in the sales process and establish mechanisms to clarify its cost-effectiveness. I plan to introduce the concept of content marketing within digital marketing in future posts.

3. Creative
For clients in B2B2C models where the end-user is a general consumer, I often find that the creative strength of an advertising agency becomes a significant value proposition.

For example, while a travel agency's customers might be schools or corporations, the ultimate customers are students, parents, or regular employees. In other words, the final consumers are the general public. The business relies on the travel agency's products being accepted by these final consumers. Capturing the insights of these final consumers and presenting the products in an appealing way is precisely what an advertising agency can do.

Consider the copy for a travel agency's website or brochure promoting school trip packages:
"Partner in Creating Attractive Schools"
instead of the typical self-promotional message like
"We'll show you scenery you'll never forget"
"The whole world is your classroom"
These express what kind of value the product and the school should provide to students and parents, which is more compelling, wouldn't you agree? Note that these are actual copy created by professional copywriters.

We've introduced B2B marketing approaches unique to advertising agencies. Beyond these, we're exploring new perspectives like ABM (Account-Based Marketing) specific to B2B marketing, while further investigating the unique value we can offer as an advertising agency—a B2B business itself.