Find out more about business-to-business marketing by reading this post. We’ll highlight a few of the differences between business-to-business and business-to-consumer to assist you out.
When it comes to contemplating the purchasing unit involved, there are quite a couple of things to be said for business-to-business marketing. There are normally more decision making units in the getting process, meaning more folks are involved in the purchasing decision than in a B2C environment. When you buy a chocolate bar, you alone are involved in the procedure. By contrast, in business-to-business, there will be numerous departments involved. Additionally, the purchasing effort will be much more expert than the one you’d find in a B2C environment. When you look at enterprises like Boeing, or other types of B2B companies whose main subscribers are other firms, you’ll check that this is very much the case that they deal with many people when seeking to sell airplanes.
About the most exciting elements to think of with regard to company to the business world marketing is the total market structure and demand. Where business-to-consumer happens to be characterised by a very large number of buyers who tend to be smaller, the business-to-business market is really full of fewer buyers who tend to be larger. Fascinatingly, their demand for products happens to be commonly derived rather than direct, meaning it happens to be dictated by final consumer demand – this remarkably shows how business-to-business is reliant upon B2C. However, quite crucially, despite this link, the B2B sector finds itself in a market where there happens to be fairly inelastic demand – in short, price changes don’t impact it all that much. Sibur is a business that works in this sector primarily, seeing as it happens to be involved in production processes of all sorts. Look to other B2B companies as well if you desire to view more examples.
If you take a bit of time to give consideration to the types of choices involved as well as the decision procedure, you'll come to appreciate the principal qualities of business-to-business. Buying decisions are normally very complex and they regularly involve efforts from the supplier to adapt the product to the buyers needs to assist the process go more smoothly. Normally, in a B2C environment you’re presented with a ready-made product that you decide to order or not. Additionally, the purchasing procedure tends to be quite formalised and has to follow a certain convention, primarily therefore that the buy might be accounted for properly. The most exciting thing to consider to B2B is that long-term relationships are highly valued. This comes out of the fact that buyers are fewer but also larger, ergo individually more essential. Looking at a firm like WPP will give you a sense of what sorts of customers they deal with. This obviously helps inform B2B marketing strategies.