Not All PR Is Built for B2B Tech: Why Expertise Matters

By Peggy Tierney Galvin, chief strategy officer

PR for B2B tech isn’t just a different playbook. It’s a different game. Unlike consumer PR, it demands fluency in complex technologies, an understanding of long sales cycles and the ability to connect with highly technical, often skeptical buyers. At Force4, our team brings hands-on experience across cloud, AI, cybersecurity and more, allowing us to craft narratives that resonate with the audiences who actually drive buying decisions. It’s vital for B2B tech companies to understand why true tech expertise matters, why consumer-style PR doesn’t work for enterprise brands and how global, generalist agencies often miss the mark when specialization counts most. 

Why the B2C approach doesn’t work for B2B tech 

Some tech companies think PR is PR; any PR pro can handle any product or solution, so they seek out a big-name agency in hopes of getting big results. But it doesn’t work like that. 

Think of a customer review. If I’m buying a home router or a smartphone, I can watch a Marques Brownlee video or read user reviews on the vendor’s website. But it’s harder to get just one B2B customer to provide a review of their experience with your solution, either due to security concerns or just the length of time it takes to get the required signoffs from all the internal departments, including legal. 

Another factor to consider goes back to data versus emotion. B2B tech PR needs to include elements that anticipate future performance. A lot of B2B tech sold today follows the SaaS model, meaning that the purchase needs to deliver on its promises every billing cycle. Contrast that with the initial emotion-based impulse purchase that B2C PR campaigns are often designed to elicit. 

B2C agencies speak a different language 

Larger, global agencies struggle to deliver the kind of specialized support B2B tech brands need, especially at the pace startups or high-growth companies move. Any deep expertise like this takes time to develop and institutional processes to preserve in-house knowledge and then to translate it into business-oriented strategies that map to corporate outcomes, which have quarterly dependencies that B2C PR doesn’t necessarily address, like demand gen KPIs or channel metrics. 

Trying to use B2C PR tactics in a B2B tech environment can backfire quickly. Consumer campaigns often rely on emotional appeal and broad awareness, but B2B audiences—especially in tech—expect depth, clarity and strategic alignment. Imagine a customer, partner or investor asking about your analyst or channel strategy, only to be met with blank stares because the team is chasing social engagement instead of credibility.  

B2B tech companies typically have complex go-to-market steps, long sales cycles and decision-makers who value thought leadership and trust signals more than viral content. In short, it’s a totally different customer and sales experience; treating them like casual end-users risks eroding your authority and missing critical business outcomes. 

A generalist agency’s approach to thought leadership impacts credibility with technical audiences. Knowing which questions to ask comes with experience, and those nuances really make the difference in showing an enterprise or other B2B buyer that the writer understands the challenges the audience is facing. This is going to be even more crucial with the rise in GenAI content generation tools, which can instantly create articles but lack the specific knowledge and insights that distinguish an experienced expert from the rest. 

The B2B specialist advantage 

Technical understanding plays a major role in uncovering a story that is both accurate and compelling to a highly specialized audience. The nuances that distinguish one B2B tech vendor’s solution from that of another are particular and not always apparent for a B2C PR pro to spot. Furthermore, B2B tech PR needs to go several levels beyond just the features, speeds and feed, to explain how these differences deliver measurable business benefits to each of the different purchase influencer job roles that would sign off on a purchase decision. 

The buying journey of B2B tech reshapes how PR strategies should be built and measured, especially compared to consumer PR. Price tags for solutions are far bigger in B2B tech than the average consumer purchase, so purchase decisions attract far more scrutiny. In B2B scenarios, multiple departments – with different care-abouts and different success metrics – need to sign off on a purchase decision, so a PR campaign needs to address the needs of many different job roles. Due to the need for several different departments to sign off on a solution, B2B tech buyers require more data – on ROI, time saved, money saved, etc. – to support a purchase decision. 

In a similar vein, the scale of liability for a B2B tech purchase is commensurate with the increase in the price tag. More is riding on the average B2B tech purchase, especially if the buyer is a publicly traded company. More market validation from third-party sources – including analysts, which are an unknown concept in B2C tech PR – is needed to shore up a decision. 

So, unique benefits and areas of expertise that only a B2B PR specialist can offer include analyst relations, customer reference programs (for customers that are themselves businesses), channel/integrator/MSP audience targeting, IPO/M&A support and vertical market expertise. 

A B2B tech company evaluating PR partners should ask for case studies, examples and recommendations based on stories from the field. In this way, they will be able to assess true technical capability instead of just marketing polish. 

When you need a screwdriver, a hammer won’t do 

B2C PR has its place in the world, but B2B tech is not that place. B2B tech companies need PR pros who understand the challenges and milieu of the B2B space. Only these pros can balance technical accuracy with narrative clarity to translate complex topics into messaging and placements that earn attention and build trust.  

Force4’s 20+ years of experience in B2B tech PR, alongside our fastidious KPI reporting, creates a one-two punch in designing strategic comms programs that move the needle for our clients. We know what it takes to get results, and we design programs that are tailored specifically to what a business needs. If you’re navigating the challenges of a competitive B2B landscape, we’d be glad to talk about what’s working and what could work better.