B2C and B2B Marketing Comparison
Marketing ultimately depends on who you are delivering your message to. With Business to Business (B2B), an organization has to know the businesses needs, its current situation, competitors, trends, technology and costs. Business to Commerce (B2C) is also about knowing who you're selling to. You have to know their wants and needs, your competition, distribution, supply chains and costs.
Often, B2B sites are more informational and technical. There is less branding, or at least a different kind. It is not so much an emotional connection as an intellectual connection. B2C sites are more entertainment. They often change with promotions and products, and are made simpler for ease of navigation for the common user.
The major characteristic of B2B is that companies attempt to automate the selling and buying processes in order to improve it. The major characteristic of B2C is that companies try to create a direct relationship with consumers without the involvement of distributors, wholesalers and dealers.
The difference in marketing is that a B2B seller tries to differentiate itself from its competition by marketing its value towards its specific market as one that will save the buyer companies a great deal of time and money by automating as much of their supply chain as possible. They do this through the traditional offline methods of advertising, tradeshows, field sales, etc. along with websites that provide customer only access to their accounts and inventory. In addition, e-mail marketing and other communications using the supply chain channels is effective. B2C also uses traditional offline methods along with the integration of online tools such as interactive websites, email marketing, online communities, pop-ups and banner ads. B2B may also utilize some of those mentioned for B2C and vice versa. The goal of any marketing program for either one is to find the combination of integrated online and offline tools that can produce maximum sales, minimum expense and maximum profit.
B2C sites tend to be more transactionally oriented than B2B sites. Both types have transactions, but consumers are usually online to transact or purchase the product or service right away; B2B users tend to be more investigative and know it may take longer to get the complete details of the product answers they are interested in. Many business sites entice those interested in learning more; to register and give their contact information in exchange for getting the information they want. This allows for human intervention, when applicable, which can really make an online business transaction very enjoyable and begin to build a long-term business relationship.
This is also a disadvantage for e-commerce sites because customers cannot speak to anyone from the business, and prefer to shop in in stores, for this reason. Customers also like to physically see the item they are purchasing, however with e-commerce they are unable to do this. That is why there is a lack of human contact. Also if a customer wanted to buy clothes, in store they would be able to feel the quality and try it, but with e-commerce this is impossible.
BCBG provides most of its sales revenue through "bricks and mortar" stores, which means they have a physical presence. For the most part they generate their business through their own retail stores, as well as wholesaling to Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Saks. But they also do a lot of their business online. They offer their own BCBG websites as well as selling on the Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Saks websites. They also sell to specialty boutiques online such as Edressme.com. BCBG has hit the stores and the Internet to generate their profit. The organization makes out very well from both aspects and they have Account Executives that monitor both the buying from online and the physical stores that they have for each region of the country. Management is also broken down into the departments and lines that are being sold, and each takes on both the online part and the physical stores responsibilities. They offer almost the same merchandise online as they have in the stores and generally the pricing is the same. But online stores sometimes offer more discounts. The pricing strategy used by B...
According to the American Marketing Association, "Marketing is an organizational function and set of a processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in a way that benefits the organization and its stakeholders" (2006). In other words, it is how a company determines what a customer's needs are and gears its products or services towards those needs in a way that their customers perceive value and the company makes money. Marketing can be broken down into two areas, between businesses and individual customers (B2C) and between businesses and businesses (B2B). When most people think of marketing, they picture consumer products being promoted through large advertising campaigns. While that area might be publicly perceived to be the largest area in marketing, the (B2B) market is actually much larger. According to researchers, "forecasters expect domestic B2B purchases will total several trillion a year" compared to "$269 billion expected [for] 2005" (American Marketing Association, 2006). The following paper will look at some of the differences between marketing on a B2B and a B2C website.
In two distinct e-commerce business types, Business-to-business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C), there are many differences in the way they operate. Specifically in marketing, differences include how the marketing is driven and the values of the strategies, the size of the target market and length of the sales cycle, and even the buying patterns of the target consumers. Each of these differences will be better defined and explained in the following paragraphs.
Although the goal of B2B marketing is to convert prospects into customers, the process is longer and more involved. A B2B company needs to focus on relationship building and communication using marketing activities that generate leads that can be nurtured during the sales cycle. B2B companies use marketing to educate various players in the target audience because the decision to purchase is usually a multi-step process involving more than one person. For example, the goal of an email campaign for B2B is to drive prospects to the web to learn about your products and services.
Customers/ consumers is when the business vies potential buyers and selects target market. Suppliers are the businesses that will supply the business with its inputs. Intermediaries are other businesses that play a role in helping the business
Email is more editorial than advertising, and it is powerful because it can support and even drive a sales process. Yet, like any medium, it has its challenges. B2C email marketing to cold lists has a terrible response rate. Social media is reducing people's reliance on email. Business people often receive hundreds of emails or more each day, so B2B marketers need to get past spam filters and give people a reason to read, with strong offer, valuable editorial content, appropriate design and a good fulfillment and measurement process.
E-commerce “is the exchange of money for goods or services between companies and/or end consumers” (Hemond-Wilson). The most common image of e-commerce “is that of a web-based catalogue from which buyers can order products and the sellers can receive payment” (Hemond-Wilson). E-commerce has two main forms, which are business-to-business, and business to consumer. B2B e-commerce “is business which is conducted between businesses via some electronic means” and B2C e-commerce “is the exchange of money for goods or services between a company and end consumers using electronic technology” (Hemond-Wilson).
... business, prompts people to learn more about your business and allows you to receive more website traffic and business.
The reason for companies turning into Inside Sales because Firstly the B2B customers have a competitive pressure to cut cost and seeks to have an effective and efficient methods to sell their products and services.
A business model could be defined as portrayal of the potential benefits for a group of stakeholders or actors; also it can be seen as architecture of how a firm generates its revenue. Over the years many firms have tried to use the Internet to create their own unique selling points, which can be seen as their business models. For instance Amazon.com’s innovation in this regards was to eliminate the traditional arrangement of supply chain (Disintermediation) and to make value out of it. Several other e-commerce sites have carried out similar transformations e.g.Ebay.com in the area of auction. Though there has been no consensus on the definition of a business model in the online context, practitioners have tried to link the term “e-commerce” to firms that can conduct all aspects of their transactions online hence some classification of the various market structures that operate in the Internet has been developed (Mahadevan, 2000).
The business market involves more dollars and items than do consumer markets. Selling goods to other organizations is easier than selling to consumers because many sets of business purchases were made for only one set of consumer purchases. Both involve people who assume buying roles and make purchase decisions to satisfy needs. The main differences are in market structure and demand, the nature of the buying unit, and the types of decisions and the decision process involved.
Marketing is a vital component in the success of businesses. Smaller businesses rely on business advertising, expenses, knowing if the business is networking with the right people, or joining the best organisations which lead to success (EStartup business blog, 2010). Marketing concentrates on customers and what the customers want. Customers are the source of sales and profits. Many small businesses are faced with remarkable hardships due to not developing the right marketing plan (EStartup business blog, 2010). To help these businesses a more appropriate or better marketing plan needs to be designed. Small business internet marketing services can help businesses develop and thrive in a highly competitive market. For the highest quality internet marketing services, hiring an online marketing company to design a customized internet marketing campaign may be advantageous for some businesses (EStartup business blog and contributors, 2010). Identified will be the role that marketing plays in a successful business demonstrated by use of two examples, the importance of developing a marketing plan, and ethical and legal issues that surround marketing practices (EStartup business blog, 2010).
The are two basic categories of business conducted over the internet, Business-to-Customer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B), and they share one common key aspect - use of Internet technologies to manage all aspects of the business.
Selling is product focused and involves using techniques to make customers exchange goods, services or brands for cash. Marketing on the other hand is more dynamic and wider than selling as it focuses more on the customer rather than the product.