B2B Marketing Horizon Web Technologies Akola
There are many similarities between B2B and B2C when it comes to e-commerce. Some of these overlaps are easy to spot: key elements like intuitive search, high-quality product images, and the need for simple navigation.
However, due to challenges such as longer buying cycles, higher volume sales, lower price points, and multiple decision makers, the path to B2B success requires a subtly different approach than plain-old B2C strategies.
In fact, there are at least four commonly overlooked factors that — if harnessed correctly — can elevate you to B2B e-commerce domination.
Not surprisingly, each of these factors is rooted in B2C best practices. But what matters is how you augment, correct, and — in some cases — supercharge those B2C building blocks for a B2B audience.
what is B2B marketing?
B2B describes business transactions between businesses, say, between a retailer and a wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a manufacturer. This can be contrasted with business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses, which basically involves commerce transactions between a business and a consumer or end user.
The overall volume of B2B transactions is substantially higher compared with the volume of B2C transactions. The main reason is that in a typical supply chain, there are many B2B transactions involving raw materials and sub components, and just one B2C transaction, specifically the sale of the finished product to the consumer or end customer.
B2B marketing is thus about attaining the needs of other businesses, although ultimately the demand for these products and services made by these businesses are likely to be driven by their consumers in their homes.
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Is B2B marketing really different from B2C marketing? A fair question. After all, B2B marketers share many concerns with their B2C counterparts. Both groups deal with product distribution, branding, development, and promotion. In addition, the line between B2C and B2B marketing is often blured. For instance, Dell Computers successfully markets to both audiences.
But yes, real differences exist between B2B and B2C marketing. Here are ten main factors that make B2B markets special as well as so different to consumer markets.
B2B markets usually have a decision-making unit that is more complex
In many households, even the most complex decisions (such as moving to a new house or where the children will go to college) are confined to the entire family unit, but items such as food, clothes, or cigarettes are usually decided by just one person. In B2B markets, the decision making unit (DMU) is highly complex—or at least the DMU has the potential to be so.
Buying low-risk and low-value products (say, the ubiquitous paper clip) may very well be the duty and responsibility of the office junior. However, buying a new plant or office that is important to a business may very well involve a large management team that will make the decision over a certain time period. The DMU at any point is often ephemeral—specialists come in and leave to make their various contributions and, of course, at some point people leave the organization or shift jobs far more frequently than they modify family unit.
This dynamism and complexity has several implications for B2B markets. The target audiences for the B2B communications are regarded as amorphous, made up of groups or teams of constantly changing individuals that have different interests and motivations. Buyers would want a good financial deal. Production managers prefer high throughput. Health and safety executives want prefer low risk. These are just their functional, simple, needs. Each individual who is party to the DMU will likewise bring their psychological and cultural baggage to the group’s decision and this will create interesting variations to the selection of suppliers and products.
B2B purchases can be divided into four categories based on their financial value as well as the level of business risk that is associated with the purchase.
- Low-risk, low-value acquisitions are considered least distinct from consumer purchases. These often involve just one, usually junior person. There is little business or financial risk involved in case the decision is wrong, meaning the thought that goes into the decision is relatively little.
- Low-risk, high-value purchases such as raw materials usually involve a combination of technical and purchasing personnel, and usually very senior people like board members. This complexity is needed to ensure that price can be brought down without affecting quality. Purchasing personnel are usually key decision makers of a company on a transaction-by-transaction basis, aided by the more technical employees, who in turn would review suppliers periodically.
- Low-value, high-risk acquisitions like office insurance would similarly need a combination of specialists and purchasers. As the “risk” is more in the product rather than the price itself, and as each business transaction is likely to be unique, an expert (or even probably an in-house legal expert) would probably be the key decision maker.
- High-value, high-risk acquisitions are considered the most distinct from all consumer purchases, with a huge number of senior decision makers assessing a wide range of purchase criteria. For plant equipment for example, expect a CFO, CEO, R&D Director, Production Director, Head of Legal Department, Purchasing Director, and some upper-management department heads to be part of the decision-making process.
