What Would a B2C Brand Do? Injecting Emotion into B2B Messaging

Early in my time at Afterpay, our CMO, Geoff Seeley, challenged my team with a simple yet game-changing question:

"How do we market to enterprise customers the way great B2C brands do?"

At first, it seemed like an odd prompt. After all, we were marketing a fintech solution to enterprise retailers—a product that, on the surface, was functional, transactional, and, let’s be honest… not the most emotionally charged offering. But Geoff—a marketing legend and one of the best I’ve worked with—knew something fundamental about how great brands connect with their audiences:

Buyers—yes, even enterprise buyers—are humans.

And humans don’t engage with jargon-filled, logic-heavy, "businessy" messaging. They engage with emotion.

The Unlock: Understanding the Customer’s Pain Point

If you want to create emotional resonance in B2B marketing, start with the pain. What is your buyer struggling with? What’s keeping them up at night? What pressures—business and personal—are weighing on them?

At Afterpay, enterprise retailers weren’t just looking for a new payment option. They were struggling to connect with Gen Z shoppers, a generation with different spending behaviors, different expectations, and a different definition of brand loyalty. Our most effective messaging didn’t focus on installments, conversion rates, or merchant fees (although those mattered). It focused on the retailer’s biggest fear:

What if our brand becomes irrelevant to the next generation of shoppers?

Once we leaned into that emotion—framing Afterpay as a tool for future-proofing their business and connecting with Gen Z shoppers—the conversation changed. Retailers leaned in. And it made all the difference.

If you want to create emotional resonance in B2B marketing, start with the pain.

Boring Messaging Doesn’t Work—Even in B2B

One of the biggest mistakes I see in B2B marketing is assuming buyers want to be spoken to differently just because they work in an enterprise environment. They don’t.

Jargon-laden, overly technical messaging might feel "safe" or "professional," but it doesn’t inspire action. The best B2B marketers borrow from B2C playbooks: 

• They tell compelling stories. 

• They make the customer the hero of those stories. 

• They speak to real fears, frustrations, and aspirations.

Because at the end of the day, business decisions aren’t just logical—they’re emotional.

Final Thought: The Next Time You Write B2B Messaging…

Ask yourself: Would this resonate if I were selling to a consumer?

If the answer is no, it’s time to rewrite.

Would love to hear from my fellow marketers—what are some of the best examples you’ve seen of B2B brands injecting emotion into their messaging? Drop them in the comments!