There is a popular notion that product management in a B2C setting is different entirely from that in B2B. This view implies that a product manager working in one environment cannot work in the other. That’s totally true.
Product managers largely have comparable skills and knowledge. They have the same tasks and challenges essentially, with only slight differences depending on the setting. Let’s consider how product management in a B2C environment compares to that of B2B.
Population
Product management for B2C focuses on a large population of users. The high target user base doesn’t always mean something to be delighted about. As PMs working in this domain would attest to, it brings the challenge of trying to please everyone or most.
B2B product managers usually have a smaller number of users to pay attention to, compared to their B2C counterparts. This can make it easier to understand the customer better and deliver what delights them.
Tools
In their efforts to deliver valuable products, B2C PMs depend heavily on experimentation tools, such as A/B testing and user testing. They combine instincts with data to determine what’s develop and test hypotheses.
B2B Product Managers by contrast, depend more on user feedback collection and keeping up with industry knowledge. PMs carry out customer/user interviews and site visits to enable them to build better products. They probably do more prototyping than their B2C counterparts.
Value Propositions
Regardless of the domain, product management is about creating value. Your product will usually have more than one value propositions whether working in a B2B or B2C setting.
Even when marketing campaigns seem to focus on a particular feature, there will also be others in the mix. How many products have you bought simply because of a single value proposition? While you might be most interested in one, there are other features you probably took for granted and that others may value.
Businesses also buy a product for multiple reasons. What one stakeholder considers valuable might not mean so much to another.
Personas
The work of B2C and B2B product management involves creating personas. This makes possible a good understanding of the targeted customer or user and their needs. It enables PMs to decide the right value propositions.
B2C product managers create multiple personas using information obtained from their research. They identify the most important persona(s) worth building a product for, paying less attention to outliers.
In a B2B environment, product management has to build out more personas, compared to B2C. This is because there are usually more stakeholders. When it comes to B2B products, the person or persons making the purchase decision are usually different from the user. This makes creating different personas for everyone vital.
Feature Requests
Your response to feature requests will be influenced by whether you’re working with a B2B or B2C product. Failure to provide a requested feature may cost you a customer, but the impact depends on the product type.
It takes a lot to get new B2B customers and this means feature requests from them must be taken more seriously, and sometimes are a contingency for signing a long-term contract. In B2B its often more nuanced and you must conduct focus groups to really understand what users want and what will engage and keep them.
Release Frequency
Users of B2C products can be more difficult to please but more resilient to on-going testing, since there is a constant flow of users on and off of your product. New learning or requests make it necessary to provide new releases frequently by working in sprints. Users need all that could make them have a better experience.
Releases are, or should be, less frequent with B2B products – stability and predictability are key. This is partly because they typically have longer release cycles. Also, while clients may be interested in some features, they don’t want more than is necessary. Certain changes might even be considered as disruptive, so less is often better for many clients.
Usability
This matters for both B2B and B2C customers, but the latter demands it, because the bar is simply higher in the consumer world. Consumers place very high premiums on ease of use. If they don’t get that or can’t find help materials quickly enough, they are likely to look somewhere else. B2B customers would happily take a better user experience as well but there’s less competitive pressure in many cases, and the emphasis is really upon efficiency and capability so they can get their job done.
Sales Model
Perhaps, the biggest thing that sets B2C and B2B product management apart is the sales model – B2C sales are conducted through market and advertising whereas B2B involves a sales team; its push vs pull.
The B2B sales process tends to be complex. There is a need for a combined effort to make sales. Other professionals, such as engineers, may need to be present to articulate what a product has to offer to customers. Comparatively, with B2C marketing, the emphasis is simply achieving an effective ROAS (return on ad spend) and CAC (cost to acquire a customer), and finding effectively channels to achieve efficient acquisition at scale.
Fundamentally, the day to day skills of Product Management is largely the same between B2B and B2C – what’s really different is the user/customer strategy, and how customers are acquired. For this reason, Product leadership needs to have a specialized focus on one or the other, but the skills needed to participate on the team and drive delivery features on a roadmap, are largely the same.
