Insights — Channel Creation & New Revenue Streams — 3 min read
How to Find B2B Customers for a Consumer Product
Finding B2B customers for a consumer product isn't about better Facebook ads. It's about identifying the commercial 'job' your product does and finding the person responsible for it.
In short
To find B2B customers for a consumer product, you must first identify the commercial use-case (e.g., employee perks, corporate gifting, or operational supply). Once the use-case is clear, you can use LinkedIn and business directories to find specific job titles — such as Facilities Manager, Head of HR, or Procurement Lead — within companies of a relevant size. The approach shifts from mass-market advertising to targeted outbound prospecting and building relationships with industry-specific distributors.
If you sell a consumer product, you likely know exactly how to find your next individual customer: you target them on social media based on their interests. But when you decide to sell that same product to businesses, those interest-based ads often fail. You aren't looking for a person who 'likes coffee'; you are looking for an Office Manager who needs to provide coffee for 200 people.
Finding B2B customers requires a shift from 'audience' thinking to 'account' thinking. You need to identify the specific types of businesses that could benefit from your product in bulk, and then identify the specific humans within those businesses who have the authority to buy it.
Define the commercial 'job' of your product
Before you start searching, you must define why a business would buy your product. A business doesn't buy a snack bar because it tastes good; they buy it to keep employees productive in a breakroom. They don't buy a designer notebook because it's pretty; they buy it as a high-quality client gift that reflects their own brand values.
Where to look: The B2B lead generation toolkit
Unlike D2C, where the platform (Meta, Google) finds the customer for you, B2B often requires you to do the finding. This involves a mix of active prospecting and creating a dedicated B2B presence that signals you are 'open for business' to trade buyers.
| Method | How it works for D2C to B2B |
|---|---|
| LinkedIn Prospecting | Identify buyers at specific companies and reach out with a commercial offer |
| Trade Shows | Showcase your product where business buyers and retailers look for new stock |
| B2B Landing Pages | Create SEO content specifically for business searches (e.g., 'bulk corporate gifts') |
| Referral Networks | Ask existing D2C customers who they work for and if their company needs your product |
| Distributor Partnerships | Partner with businesses that already sell other products to your target B2B audience |
Identifying the decision maker
In B2B, the 'user' of the product is often not the 'buyer'. If you sell premium tea, the users are the employees, but the buyer might be a Facilities Manager or an Office Experience Lead. Your marketing and outreach needs to speak to the buyer's pain points: reliability of supply, ease of invoicing, and employee satisfaction.
Building the pipeline
Success in B2B is rarely about a single sale; it's about building a pipeline of recurring orders. Evans' Opportunity Engine service is designed to help businesses build this outbound muscle, moving beyond 'waiting for the phone to ring' to actively securing high-value business contracts.
Could your business support another route to revenue?
Evans Channel Creation identifies, validates and builds additional revenue channels from capabilities a business already has — B2B to D2C, D2C to B2B, product to service, recurring revenue or partners — and says so plainly when a channel should not be built. Programme from £1,995 + VAT per month over six months.
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