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The line between B2B and B2C has never been blurrier. B2B buyers expect the same level of relevance, responsiveness, and personalization in a B2B setting as they do when shopping for a new pair of headphones online.

The shift to hybrid work, proliferation of digital channels, and rise of cross-functional buying committees have made traditional firmographic targeting increasingly obsolete.

Enter the business-to-person (B2P) model. B2P isn’t just a new acronym; it’s a new strategic mindset.

To stay competitive, B2B marketers must embrace the complexity of reaching real individuals across channels, devices, and roles. Done right, this shift unlocks stronger customer relationships, better campaign performance, and more predictable growth.

Why Traditional B2B Targeting Falls Short

For decades, B2B marketing relied on company-centric approaches. You knew the target account, matched it to a job title, and pushed messaging based on broad industry assumptions. But today’s buying journeys are anything but linear or contained.

Decision makers are not sitting around waiting for your email. They’re hybrid, remote, or in motion. They consume content across inboxes, LinkedIn feeds, Slack threads, CTV ads, webinars, and on TikTok. Each interaction is a signal, each moment a chance to connect. Traditional targeting can’t keep pace with this fragmentation.

Further complicating matters, purchase decisions are rarely made by a single person. Buying committees now span departments and job levels, and influencers can frequently have more sway than final approvers. Without a way to identify and personalize outreach to all of these individuals, campaigns miss the mark.

Reliable, high-quality business identifiers remain vital in the context of a B2P reality, but they must be taken further. Marketers are also contending with the reality that many potential buyers aren’t easily identifiable through standard B2B sources. Building relationships requires marketers to go beyond company-level targeting to understand, identify, and engage individuals.

What Makes B2P Work

Three foundational capabilities make B2P effective: persistent identity resolution, person-level personalization, and interoperable ecosystems.

Persistent Identity Resolution

In the fragmented, omnichannel world of modern marketing, persistent identity resolution is the connective tissue that holds everything together. Identity resolution goes far beyond matching a name to an email address and into building a reliable, enduring understanding of who someone is—across time, touchpoints, and devices. This includes syncing identifiers across platforms (like hashed emails, device IDs, and business domains), and continuously refreshing and validating them.

Without persistent identifiers, marketers risk duplicating records, misattributing engagement, or delivering inconsistent experiences. Worse, they miss out on the compound value of long-term relationships. Persistent identity is the foundation of continuity, and continuity is the foundation of trust.

Person-Level Personalization

Once you can consistently identify individuals, the next step is engaging them in ways that feel tailored, relevant, and timely. Person-level personalization is about more than dynamic first names in email subject lines. It involves interest-based content, role-aware messaging, behavior-triggered sequences, and even cadence customization based on prior interactions.

For example, someone in finance evaluating cost savings might need a very different value proposition than someone in IT focused on integration ease. B2P marketers must serve both—through content and channels that reflect the individual’s priorities, not just the company’s industry. Intelligent personalization recognizes not just who someone is, but where they are in the decision-making process.

Interoperable Ecosystems

You can’t deliver personalized, cross-channel experiences if your systems don’t talk to each other.

B2P marketing demands ecosystem interoperability, including shared data structures, real-time data flow, and platform-agnostic integrations that allow insights to follow the customer—wherever they go and however they engage. This architecture enables consistent messaging, intelligent sequencing, and measurable outcomes across the full funnel.

B2P Is a New Operating Model

The move to B2P goes beyond a trend. It’s a fundamental evolution of how modern businesses grow. Success depends on seeing buyers not as roles on a spreadsheet but as individuals in a network, each with their own goals, influences, and preferences. It requires infrastructure and high-quality data that can keep up with a fast-changing digital environment.

Marketers who transition from a B2B to a B2P operating model will capture more leads, earn more loyalty, close more deals, and be better equipped to navigate whatever comes next in our increasingly complex digital world.

More Resources on B2B Marketing Strategy

The New Marketing Playbook: Why Connection Beats Conversion Every Time

Marketing to Machines: The New Funnel for an AI-Driven Buyer

How AI Is Reshaping the Modern Marketing Org

Beyond Last-Click: Attribution Models That Actually Reflect Modern Customer Journeys