What You Must Account For When Writing Emotional B2B Sales

What You Must Account For When Writing Emotional B2B Sales Copy

Emotions. We all have them. And as marketers we’re all taught that you have to appeal to your prospect’s emotions in order to get your most-wanted response. When you’re selling B2C products like health supplements and consumer newsletters, this is absolutely the true. But in the B2B world, it’s not quite so simple. Here’s why…

B2B Buyers Have Conflicting Emotions

True, the B2B buyer has emotions just like the average consumer. Only when you get her over the edge from “I need it” to “I want it” will she make a buying decision.

However, she is sitll an employee of her company. She must take into account her company’s needs when making a decision to purchase your B2B product or service. And her company’s needs don’t always jibe with her own. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

Let’s say Sarah is a software development manager with a medium-sized consulting firm. The programmers that report to Sarah make changes to the underlying software architecture without informing their supervisors. This causes broken builds and missed deadlines. Sarah’s boss has told her she needs to buy a change management system for her company.

Sarah knows she these probelms have to stop and a change management system will help. She has investigated her options and is leaning toward the market leader in the change management space. It’s got all the features her company needs and long track record of past success stories.

There’s just one problem…

You Cannot Neglect a Business Buyer’s Personal Needs

While this solution is very feature-rich, it requires about 3-4 hours a day for maintenance and administration. Sarah knows her company cannot afford to hire a full time change management person, so the administrative burden will undoubtedly fall on her.

Sarah just had a baby earlier this year and already doesn’t get to see much of her family. Her job is too demanding and overtime-intensive. This causes her to seek other options that might not require such an extra duty, but she just doesn’t see any other products that meet her company’s change management needs.

Are you beginning to see why the B2B sale becomes so complex?

Selling to a prospect’s emotions is very important. But B2B sales prospects have two sets of buying needs that don’t always dovetail with one another. You must address both if you are to maximize your chances to sell big-ticket B2B products and services.

That’s why it’s important that you hire a B2B copywriter to understand this dichotomy and can address both sets of needs. Business, as well as personal. Very few copywriters can do both in the same promotion with an equal degree of skill. So when you find one who can, hang on to him: he’s worth his weight in gold.