What is B2B communication?
The definition of communication is an interaction between two or more people. In fact, we humans communicate more than we think, as we are constantly communicating in and with our surroundings - both consciously and actually also unconsciously.
If you ask any communication researcher, he or she will tell you that the basic elements of communication always include:
- A sender
- A message
- a channel
- one or more recipients
When we communicate in the B2B market, we communicate from business to business. The sender can be an employee of the company, a department within the company or sent on behalf of the entire company.
The message can either be personally tailored to a specific recipient or be more general in nature.
The choice of channel can be single or multiple channels and the recipient can also be a single person in a company, a department or an entire company that is thought to be relevant as recipients for the message - this could be a potential customer for the product you are selling.
How can I communicate with potential customers?
Your communication to potential customers can be both verbal and non-verbal.
- If you market yourself on a social media platform (such as LinkedIn) to B2B companies where you can only express yourself via text, a banner, a picture or a video, this is non-verbal communication.
- If you send a potential customer an email (for example, at a sales outreach), you are also communicating nonverbally, as you are not talking directly to the receiver of your message.
- If you call the potential customer to schedule a meeting, this is verbal communication, as you can only use your voice.
- If you finally attend a physical or online meeting with the potential customer, you will be able to use both your verbal spoken language and non-verbal body language, which increases your chances of closing a sale if you use both your speech and body language wisely.
Why is good B2B communication important?
Building good customer relationships in the B2B world requires both trust and good relationships with customers. Without communicating, we can't build good relationships and without good relationships, the chance of gaining trust is very small.
If you want to sell a product or service to a company, your job is to influence the recipient of the message to think and act in a certain way - whether it's through marketing or in a sales pitch.
In the last section, you were introduced to the model of the basic elements of communication, which include: sender, message, channel and receiver. In addition, it should be mentioned that there is typically noise on the line, which should be understood as a dispute in the message that the sender wants to send to the receiver.
Imagine that the sender is an actor who encodes and sends a message via a channel that is received by the receiver, who finally decodes the message. The message sent by the sender may not be decoded by the receiver as the sender intended.
We are all different and see the world through different lenses, we have different backgrounds and thus a message can be understood in different ways depending on who is decoding the message. For this reason, it is incredibly important that we are easy to understand when we communicate.
B2B marketing, sales and communication in general has for many years been characterized by formal language - but what good is that if the recipient you're sitting across from doesn't understand it?
