Does “B2B2C” marketing sound like “adlja;woejfa” to you?

B2B2C: Better, Together.

A different language? Gobbledygook? Wingdings (I see/am you 40+ crowd!)? 

While growing in popularity, “B2B2C” is not a term that’s entered the mainstream business world’s vernacular…yet. Just type in “what is B2B2C marketing?” into ChatGPT - the response is a doozy (and I have the subscription version)! But it’s actually not complicated. And, done right, it creates a massive opportunity for businesses and consumers.

ALLOW ME TO REINTRODUCE MYSELF: business-to-business-to-consumer - partnerships.

That’s it! Spelling it out helps. Two companies partner together (hello, B2B) and then collectively work together to drive awareness and engagement of a product to their consumers and/or employees (hey, B2C!).

Let’s use the enormously popular mental health and wellness startup Headspace as an example. Headspace partners with Fortune 500 companies to provide employees at these companies with mental health support through its app. 

It’s a win-win-win. Companies reduce the stress levels of their employees by offering Headspace to them (often increasing their employees’ productivity), employees get the support they need without paying for it (often improving employee satisfaction and retention rates), and Headspace increases its reach (and revenue).

Both companies are stronger by partnering together, and the consumer wins too.

WHAT B2B2C MEANS FOR SAAS MARKETING & SALES TEAMS: you have 2 customers. 

• Your Buyers – the companies you partner with.

• Your End Users - the consumers or employees at the companies you partner with.

In this world, your buyers are usually a company’s c-suite team - their wants and needs are to offer products or benefits to employees that also positively impact their bottom line. Your end users, however, can have wildly different wants and needs. In other words, the value proposition that sells in a business is not what’s going to win over an end-user. 

How do you combat this? Customer journey mapping - highlighting each of your customers needs, paint points, levers, and identifying the key moments that matter - must be a critical component of your marketing and sales strategy in B2B2C models.

When done right, when sales and marketing are aligned as a team, B2B2C marketing is the truest form of full funnel marketing for SaaS businesses. 

HEADS-UP: Partnerships are relationships and relationships can be complicated.

The benefits of B2B2C marketing for SaaS companies are massive - including expanded consumer reach, faster revenue growth, increased brand recognition, awareness, and credibility, reduced customer acquisition costs (CAC), and a wealth of data-driven insights that allow marketers and product teams to continuously adjust to meet end users’ needs.

The hard part? Well, all of it. 

Anything that’s contingent on a partnership - a relationship - is usually complex in nature, especially when millions of dollars are on the line. Adding to the complexity is that you have three stakeholders (the two businesses and the consumer), all with different goals and expectations. Branding at scale can be challenging for SaaS businesses as their partners often want custom experiences. Then there’s the question of which B2B player owns the consumer – in the Headspace example, is it Headspace (the employee signed up for their benefit?) or is it the company the employee works for (the company is paying for their employee to have that benefit?). 

There’s another blog for another day to highlight how to address the challenges (spoiler alert: collaboration and integration are key). 

But the bottom line is this: for SaaS-based companies value creation for all stakeholders is possible with the B2B2C model and leveraging it can reap far bigger rewards than just going the direct-to-consumer route. 

However, like any relationship, B2B2C partnerships require trust, collaboration, and open communication between partners to work as powerfully as possible together.