B2B Marketing

Commercial relationships between organizations are referred to as business to business marketing. The short name for business to business marketing is B2B marketing and it has different peculiarities from regular business to consumer marketing by the means of distribution, usually labeled as direct. There are all sorts of other distinctions between the two, which is why experts often discuss them in parallel.

Referring to consumer marketing, the population gets access to products and services through retailers in a very simple process. With business to business marketing, transactions are not closed without negotiations between seller and buyer.

As for similarities, business to business marketing and business to consumer marketing rely on identical mechanisms that correspond to the major principles of traditional marketing. Yet, beyond surface similarities, things are a lot more complex than one may suspect. Here is what brings B2B and B2C marketing close together.

-They define a target market and try to match the service or product to the corresponding needs.
-Businesses have to advertise regardless of their end clients.
-The target market should have a good idea about the value of the products or services.
-The strength and the prices of the product/service must correspond to some overall market tendencies.

While it is clear who sells something in business to business marketing, things are a bit different when it comes to defining the buyer. It is false to describe this 'other' market sector by the same general concept of 'businesses' because they too fall into separate categories and thus require different marketing approaches. There are institutions, government agencies, resellers and companies that consume products and services.

The consumers in the business categories are those that need equipment for their operational processes. Then, business to business marketing with institutions involves working with schools, churches, charity organizations, hospitals or nursing homes. The government with all the corresponding agencies is the biggest consumer of all, if we think of local governments too. And finally, distributors, wholesalers and resellers work both with business to business marketing, as buyers, and with business to consumer, as sellers.

Given the fact that the business partners in the transactions are companies, huge sums of money circulate within the business-to-business marketing system. Moreover, the volume of the merchandise is also different, together with the promotional means, the discounts, the pricing structures and lots of others. Therefore, beyond common grounds for B2B marketing and B2C marketing, each approach has its specificity and separate operational mode.