B2B needs to redefine itself as ‘brand to buyer’ before it’s too late. Here’s why.

I’ve been feeling like we’re not in “business to business land anymore” for a long time.

Maybe it’s because I got my start in 2012, a time when brand marketing was really taking off thanks to social media platforms like LinkedIn.

But even as a starry-eyed junior copywriter, I always thought it a waste that B2B marketing ignored the very human, very emotional buyer on the other side.

Now we’re at an even bigger inflection point with AI. And the window is closing fast for the old playbook to transform into something relevant, adaptable, and effective.

With mindset mattering most during upheavals and transformations, what if we redefined B2B from ‘business to business’ to ‘brand to buyer’?

Here’s my thinking:

Businesses don’t build trust, brands do

One of the core values of strategic branding is that it helps build trust and foster loyalty with customers.

How? By signaling professionalism, consistency, and value across five areas: Purpose (why the brand exists); Values (what’s important to the brand); Voice & tone (how the brand sounds); Design & visual identity (how the brand looks); and Story (what makes the brand unlike any other).

A business, on the other hand, is the kit of parts that helps an entity run smoothly. Think processes, operations, finances, etc.

As a human making a buying decision, it’s much easier to relate to a brand. No wonder Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer found that 80% of people trust the brands they use.

B2B buyers form deeper emotional bonds

Whoever introduced the idea that B2B decision-making isn’t emotional must have hated flavor in their food. Because emotions spice up the buyer’s journey big time.

Research from Google and CEB’s Marketing Leadership Council found that B2C consumers have nothing on the emotional bonds B2B buyers build:

“B2B customers are significantly more emotionally connected to their vendors and service providers than consumers.”

It makes sense. A whole lot more than personal satisfaction is at risk for large business purchases such as software or vendors. A bad decision doesn’t just waste money, it derails projects, frustrates teams, and can end careers.

And once a tool is implemented, it’s hard to replace it with a better one (54% of businesses default to renewals for convenience).

Despite advancements in personalization over the last decade, buyer-centric B2B marketing is still the exception, not the rule.

And now that we’ve got AI tools that let us make content really fast, with fewer quality checks involved, a new hurdle to emotional relevancy has emerged.

AI is really good at scaling the echo chamber

Some of the AI-generated content flooding our feeds, inboxes, and blogs is good, while a lot of it is bad.

I have confidence that the quality will even out as marketers get better at using the tools and the brands they work for instate definitions for success.

My real concern is that the tropes that give B2B marketing a bad name will be perpetuated at a scale that’s irreversible. Why? The tools learned from content created under ‘business to business’ thinking—content that talks at buyers, not to them.

Here’s what gets replicated:

• Talking at readers about their pain points as if the business knows better
• Self-promoting to customers like a second cousin selling doTERRA at a family BBQ
• Promising an answer in an asset title, but using a click-through to cold sell to prospects

A ‘brand to buyer’ mindset produces training data worth learning from.

It asks different questions: not “What features should we highlight?” but “What does this person risk by choosing us—and how do we honor that risk?”

Redefining B2B for a new era

Selling business to business isn’t enough when traditional moats are being weakened by AI. New positioning that reflects both adaptability and resilience is what’s required today.

Redefining what B2B means, from “business to business” to “brand to buyer,” can help us marketers accomplish three things:

1. Keep humans the focus as automation widens the gap between brands and buyers. When every competitor can generate 100 blog posts a week, the brands that win will be those that remember they’re talking to a person who could lose their job over this decision.
2. Help marketers remember the emotional psychology of buying when creating work. B2B purchases are personal, even when they’re not personal spending. Marketing that acknowledges stakes builds trust.
3. Better serve B2B buyers with the tools, assets, and information they need to decide. Buyers don’t need more content. They need content that respects their intelligence and their risk.

It’s a mindset shift more than anything else. Because how we think about a situation is the single most important factor when navigating challenging periods of change.

Will we pivot before the window closes?

There’s reason for optimism: 12% of B2B content marketers say they were “highly effective (exceeded their goals)” in 2025, up from just 5% in 2020.

Progress is happening. But 88% still aren’t breaking through.

The marketers who drive impact in the next few years will be those who recognize this isn’t just a tactics problem—it’s an identity problem.

B2B marketing has an identity crisis brewing. Replacing ‘business to business’ with ‘brand to buyer’ can help keep humans the focus as AI reshapes everything else.

I’m exploring what changes when we shift from ‘business to business’ to ‘brand to buyer’ thinking. What behaviors would you change first?

My thinking, my words. I used Claude as an editing partner to sharpen the argument and structure.