BUSINESS TO BUSINESS MARKETING .

Business to Business Marketing

Business to Business Marketing

Introduction

Recall that the industrial or B2B Marketing (Business to Business) is a discipline that is used when your end customer is a business and not an individual, in which case it is B2C Marketing, Business to consumer. B2B marketing has many features which give it a certain complexity for firms specializing in B2C.

Marketing B2B (business to business) refers to the sale of business to business-to-business marketing as opposed to B2C (business to costumer) addressed to individuals. B2B marketing time was almost nonexistent. Recent years, relations between professionals have adapted all marketing tools. A common motto: Know your client the same way that seeks to B2C segment its customers to identify target groups, B2B had to learn not to identify groups, but to know customers. With a top constraint: the marketing directed at consumers can tolerate a reasonable margin of error (Karimov, 2011). In B2B, the seller has the right to much less error; the market for institutional clients is much smaller: Losing a customer is much more problematic B2B and B2C. It is not here to segment its customers, but to know them all. Just as in B2C, the product is considered in its broadest sense; it can be tangible (well, physical object) or intangible (business services).

Differences between B2B and B2C Marketing

Organisational buying decisions must include many people, all trying to reach a common goal, whilst also satisfying their own agendas. This substantially increases the complexity of the decision-making process. A recent white paper from Enquiro Research, 'Mapping the Buyer Sphere', discussed the incorrect approach of traditional B2B marketing theory.

Conventional belief states that B2B purchasing is a purely rational process, where facts are duly considered and every option is carefully weighed. According to Enquiro's research, however, humans just aren't built that way. The same emotions that consumers use when buying goods for themselves - gut feelings, beliefs, instincts and habits, are actually being used within the business world. “To say that there is no emotion in B2B buying behaviour is to refute human behaviour,” says the paper. It is, therefore, important to examine the role of emotion in the B2B buying process. While the primary drive in consumer purchase decisions is the rewarding feeling once the purchase has been made, this is not necessarily true in the B2B world. When it comes to business purchase decisions, it is primarily the fear of making the wrong decision, and the risk that this decision involves, that drives the process. With the personal sense of reward becoming of lesser importance, it is the emotion of fear that is heightened. B2B buying thus becomes all about minimising fear by eliminating risk - whether that be organisational risk or personal risk.

According to Enquiro, it is for this reason that “99% of B2B buying is about covering your butt.” So what are the steps that B2B buyers take in order to ensure that the risk factor is decreased? The answer, quite simply, is research, research, ...