The following table summarizes the differences between B2B marketing and B2C marketing. Your marketing plan needs to take into account the differences and ensure you are developing the right types of activities for your particular market.
B2B
• Relationship driven
• Maximize the value of the relationship
• Small, focused target market
• Multi-step buying process, longer sales cycle
• Brand identity created on personal relationship
• Educational and awareness building activities
• Rational buying decision based on business value B2C
• Product driven
• Maximize the value of the transaction
• Large target market
• Single step buying process, shorter sales cycle
• Brand identity created through repetition and imagery
• Merchandising and point of purchase activities
• Emotional buying decision based on status, desire, or price
Businesses that Sell to Consumers
The ultimate goal of B2C marketing is to convert shoppers into buyers as aggressively and consistently as possible. B2C companies employ more merchandising activities like coupons, displays, store fronts (both real and Internet) and offers to entice the target market to buy. B2C marketing campaigns are concerned with the transaction, are shorter in duration and need to capture the customer’s interest immediately. These campaigns often offer special deals, discounts, or vouchers that can be used both online and in the store. For example, the goal of an email campaign for a B2C company is to get consumers to buy the product immediately. The email will take the consumer to a landing page on the web site that is designed to sell the product and make purchasing very easy by integrating the shopping cart and checkout page into the flow of the transaction. Any more than a couple of clicks and the customer is likely to abandon the shopping cart.
One interesting aspect of B2C marketing, however, is that many companies have realized the importance of loyalty. Amazon, Best Buy, and Staples combine merchandising and education to keep customers coming back. Add great customer service, and you get a winning combination.
Businesses that Sell to Businesses
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.
High levels of customer satisfaction will not guarantee future sales, but are more likely to result in repeat future sales than indifferent or poor customer service. Moreover, satisfied customers are more likely to try out other products/services in the firm’s range, or recommend it to friends and family. Build on customer loyalty Customer loyalty is valued highly by most businesses and can be
In this wholesale retail industry, the major key players are Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, and Target. Other e-commerce businesses like Amazon are also considered the rivals of Costco and other primarily brick-and-mortar businesses. The level of rivalry among existing players is high due to many reasons. First of all, it is easy for the customers to switch their memberships if they are unsatisfied with the company’s products or services. Since the annual fee of membership at Sam’s Club is ten dollars lower than that of Costco, Costco customers can switch their membership to Sam’s Club anytime they want. Many wholesale retailers have similar items, which means that there are no product differentiations among the companies. In addition to that,
“As the potential customer in a B2B scenario, we are still an individual going through a decision-making process. Although the buying cycle may be different and the decision-making process motivated by different factors, we can still map out and understand how digital branding is having an impact (Rowles,2014).” Although, there is little emotion involved needed to sale the products there must be more emphasis is on the features of the product which, can make this very lengthy to explain all the features. Digital marketing to B2B helps to attract other businesses and make it easier to buy our products. However, since a whole group must decide this could delay the purchase of our products and make it time consuming. To combat this the use of blogs, emails and social media platforms will be implemented. I conclude that digital marketing to B2B is the most effective way to reach customers in the simulation. The strategy is to continually improve ads to reflect the features of the product. This must be done truthfully and prioritizing to the features most desired by the Cost cutter, Innovator, Traveler and Mercedes segment. This will in turn improve market demand in all segments because it would enable the modification of products much more
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.
Additionally, brand equity, the company’s reputation, and Best Buy’s internet presence and website are also valuable intangible resources. In fact, the article mentioned that Best Buy has the 11th largest e-commerce website worldwide. Best Buy’s core competency lies within the company’s focus towards “customer-centricity attained thorough the in-depth data analysis and systematic customer segmentation.” To restate that, Best Buy differentiates themselves from their competition by providing expert advice and service at prices that compete with competition.
Once the target market has been identified it is important to develop a marketing strategy. In today's fast paced, information overloaded society; conveying a message about a product seems to be more difficult than ever. The consumer is bombarded with advertising everywhere they look. Today advertising not only exists on television, radio, magazines, and newspapers, it can be found on billboards, park benches, in our mailboxes, on buses, taxis, at sporting events, and on clothing.
Marketing involves activities to find right people for the business and then gaining their attention and retaining them for life. There are many theories marketers employed to stand their business out of crowd or at least make it visible. To make any business efficiency and effective, it is important to seek the target customer market. There are primarily three main areas to consider while identifying the target market. Those are as follows;
Primarily, strategic marketing initiates its process through market research, thereby inculcating the optimal target customers throughout the development phase of the product or service. Market research enables the firm to identify trends from the horizon, especially by studying major competitors in the market that eventually informs the firm’s product designs and development. Strategic marketing does thus enable the company to use to researched information to differentiate products for individual client niches, which provides the firm with a competitive
... It really all depends on your target market. Marketing is always geared towards the customer. Without the customer, your business will not be successful.
Marketing differs from Supply Chain Management (SCM). First, there is marketing focus of customer focus such as promotions while SCM deals with reducing inventory investments. Second marketing deals with profitability and SCM helps build competitive advantage for the channel to create customer value. Marketing relays more on advertising to the public eye while SCM focuses more on the data, such as what is in demand for the product.
Promotion. Finally comes promotion - informing the customer on the qualities and advantages of the product so that the potential buyer learns about the product, prefers it to those of the competitors, and has an opportunity to buy it at some place.
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 that 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).
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.
In all reality, all businesses will, in some way shape or form, complete all of the marketing activities, even if completing these activities is not their main goal. (Dlabay 2006.) These marketing activities are product, place, price, and promotion. A business tool called that marketing mix takes all of these activities and puts them together in a way that can be used to help improve a business’s marketing strategy. Product is what the company is selling; Place is where the consumer will obtain this product; Price is what the consumer will pay for the product; Promotion is any type of communication that is intended to remind, inform, or persuade. (Dlabay 2006.) The marketing mix and the four P’s describe very well what business marketing is all about.
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.