As a b2c product marketer, how best move into SAAS industry/b2b?
2 Answers
Suyog Deshpande
Samsara Sr. Director | Head Of Product & Partner Marketing • November 19
You already are a marketer, which is a good starting point.
Key differences:
- In B2C, you are focused on users. In B2B, you also need to think about accounts: That means you are moving from a “a buyer” to “ a committee of buyers” for your product. That means additional personas, objections, processes and challenge.
- In B2C, marketing could directly result in revenue. In B2B, you will have a sophisticated sales team to generate revenue.
- In B2C, sales cycles can be short. In B2B, they typically tend to be long
- In B2C, there is a lot of focus on engaging content. In B2B, the focus is on educational content
- .... and more
1) So, first acknowledge these differences and see if you can bridge that gap with projects
Example: if you are a B2B2C company, which is what most companies are becoming, then try to work on some B2B projects - like messaging or pricing for resellers
2) Find common ground and transferable skills - Did you do customer marketing or content marketing or channel/partner marketing? Those are all valuable skills in B2B as well.
3) Think if there is some intermediate role that you might need to take before becoming a product marketer at a B2B company - examples: Marketing Ops or Growth Marketing - Get into B2B industry first and then get into product marketing.
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Melinda Chung
ex-VP Marketing at VSCO; ex-Dir at PMM Adobe; Founder at Product Marketing Bootcamp | Formerly Adobe, GoDaddy, VSCO, 3x startups • January 13
People often say that you can get into organizations by either function or domain. If you haven’t been in SaaS before, get into a SaaS company through your functional expertise - product marketing.
I would recommend moving into a SaaS company that does both B2C and B2B. You have the product marketing functional expertise to land in B2C there, and then you can network and move into a B2B function from there.
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