We’re back and raring to go! In our first podcast of the season, Lee-Ann is discussing B2B affiliate programs and how they differ from brand to brand marketing. She will be joined by, not one guest, but many industry peers that all weigh in with their insights on the matter as we launch volume 1 of a set of panels from our Elevate Summit. 

Joining Lee-Ann this week is Nikita Zhitkevich, Director of Channel Partnerships at PartnerStack, Jason Lilien, Senior Director at All Inclusive Marketing, Robin Albrecht, Affiliate Partnerships Manager in Digital Marketing at BigCommerce, and Marthe Berlin, Publisher Director at Impact.com. Keep listening for some intriguing insights to the affiliate marketing industry.

So, what are the different B2B marketing elements that you can explore as a business? Should you go with B2B marketing, brand to brand marketing, partnerships, collaborations? We’re breaking them all down here for you to come to the best conclusion.

B2B marketing

B2B marketing is used as an umbrella term for the many pockets of affiliate marketing that can occur between different businesses. But when you pull the idea apart you might come away with different concepts. 

As it stands, B2B marketing is for B2B businesses. Businesses that have a product or service for other businesses and therefore need to market directly to them. The differences between this and other affiliate marketing concepts will become obvious as we go. 

For the basics, it is best to compare it to B2C marketing. B2C, or business to customer, marketing, is what we all know best: a company trying to sell the everyday consumer something. When adapting from B2C to B2B it mainly comes down to perspective in your language. All your language is geared towards improving a company’s customer’s life, and how they can help their customers you’re your product/service, rather than directly improving a customer’s life, like a B2C company would. 

Brand to brand marketing

Brand to brand marketing is different from business to business marketing in a number of ways. For one, a brand doesn’t have to represent a company. An influencer or an affiliate can be a brand. So if we were to think of it in those terms, you can imagine one YouTuber marketing a decent mic to a Twitch streamer: brand to brand. 

But that’s more limiting than the entirety of brand to brand marketing. It’s more like a collaboration between businesses. A brand to brand marketing strategy, as Marthe Berlin explains, “is two brands working together to target their specific audiences or their respective audiences and ensuring that they have incentivized purchases from one another”. 

How it differs from B2B or business to business marketing, as Jason Lilien explains, is in the fact that “B2B is very much a business targeting affiliates that then target other businesses.”

How do these concepts benefit you?

A business looking into affiliate marketing can benefit from both of these concepts in different ways. Depending on the industry you’re in, B2B marketing might be the best choice, and B2B affiliates can allow you to narrow your target down to the people most likely to use your business. 

But partnerships online are always beneficial, so it’s important to look into this option. It will mean creating content together that is targeted at demographics that you share, but aren’t in competition with for the best results.

If you are interested in more affiliate and social media marketing insights, take a look at our blog for all the latest news and advice. Or for a more personalised approach, book a free call with a member of our team.

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