Marketing Differences Paper: B2b vs. B2c 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.
Drive and Strategy Values
Business-to-Business
Business-to-business companies are relationship driven. They are offering another company a product or service that the company should use to their benefit, and in order to sell this
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Consumer Buying Patterns
Business-to-Business
In terms of marketing, even the buying patterns and reasons for purchase of the consumers play a large part in the different marketing techniques of B2B and B2C companies. In the business-to-business companies, the buyers are buying based off of rational decisions and the business value a product or service brings. This is why the marketing strategy must focus on the relationship between businesses: the need to communicate the details and benefits of a product or service, to prove it as a beneficial and worthwhile for another company to have, is critical.
Business-to-Consumer
The consumers in this type of business have buying patterns based on emotions. The products they seek out often are selected based on price, the desire to own something they don’t necessarily need but really want, or to reflect a certain status within their social circles. These reasons create the need for an entirely different marketing strategy- one that appeals to the social status, or the price that most consumers would be willing to pay for that product or service. The need to be competitive, to market something so that it will sell better than the competitors is critical, as in the technological e-commerce world there is the possibility for limitless competitors, and not every one of them will survive (Murphy, 2008).
Business interaction can be interpreted as a communication process that occurs between companies and which changes and transforms aspects of the resources and activities of the involved companies and of the companies themselves. For example, the interaction may lead to one of the companies modifying the product and service offering that it supplies to a counterpart. It may also lead the counterpart to reorganize aspects of its operations in order to accommodate that offering. Interaction also forms a working structure for a business network and provides an element of stability to how different companies relate to each other within a network. This may also be used as a means through which companies address their respective problems; interaction may
Just about every business today has a web site. Weather they are doing business with other businesses or selling directly to the public, a business today needs to have a web site. This paper will discuss Business-2 Business (B2B), Business-2-Consumer (B2C). The paper will look at the marketing concept, and the similarities and differences of brick-and-mortar and eBusiness. Every business, rather online or at a physical site, falls in one of the following categories.
Once a decision is made to develop a business, whom the customer will be is the next decision to be made. Whom will the company target as a customer? Will it be a business? Or will it be a consumer? Business-to-business (B2B) marketing has differences from business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing practices. This paper will outline these differences between the two types of e-commerce business transactions.
Marketing today is very different to how it used to be. Effective marketing is all about understanding the external market and identifying that the customers are looking for something unique rather than what is already available. There are two approaches that an organisation can take when marketing a product to the consumer. These are transactional marketing and entrepreneurial or relationship marketing. Relationship marketing is a more modern approach to marketing today, as it is a way of gaining repeat sales and a close relationship to the customer. Relationship marketing is defined as an “attempts to involve an integrate customers, suppliers and other infrastructural partners into a firm’s developmental and marketing activities.” (Sehr 1994). When the producers communicate directly with their consumer individually they are more likely to develop a close relationship, which will hopefully result in frequent sales. (Sehr 1994) The producer’s main priority is on the needs and wants of the consumer and ensuring that they are given the most efficient service. There opinion is what matters to them creating a two-way system for a long-term sustainable performance. Transactional marketing, adopted by sim venture, is the other marketing strategy that can be taken by an organisation. This is a more old fashioned view of marketing and considered to be a one-way system. Limited contact is made between the
Both B2C companies and B2B companies have similar qualities when it comes to their marketing plan. Both types of companies believe in having a strong brand and having a strong positive image of their companies. However, the companies will differ when it comes to the reasons why they feel that having a strong brand will be important to the company. The B2C companies need to have a strong brand in order to maintain and grow the amount of consumers and costumers they have by matching the brand of their known products. Individual consumers can become attached to a certain company solely based on their brand. When it comes to B2B companies having a strong brand will only help other companies consider rather or not to make the purchase from Intel but the ultimate decision comes down to many other business factors including how Intel will look
Its also means the content marketing, especially the digital content marketing (DCM) must be strongly focused and developed due to some reason. Firstly, it was said by Daniel Rowles that people seem to consider brands are all about business to consumer (B2C) situation, but the fact that brands in general is equally consisted in business to business (B2B) environment. Somehow, the way to approach to audiences and customers in a B2B model is much more complicated than we usually assume due to how directly the conceivable customer is going to engage with your business. (Rowles, 2014) Additionally, we all understand the magnificent differences between B2C and B2B service. To be detailed, while personal consumers buy B2C products for their personal use, the purchasing process in B2B-buying is a more complex process when business buyers acquire purchases for their whole business, company or organization. The members who are going to make the decision is varied from technical, business, financial and operational departments and mainly following the demand of product or service - (Linton) cited (Solomon, 2010). One more reason is the way B2B organizations do their marketing is not the same with B2C ones. B2B marketing tends to concentrate on content marketing, which defined as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract
The B2B market requires a very different sales and marketing approach than B2C. Yet, companies in the B2B space continue to over emphasize certain sales and marketing activities at the expense of others. This paper explores the principal problems with the current sales and marketing approach in the B2B space and identifies what’s required to improve it.
The nature of business to business marketing differs in many areas with business to consumer marketing. The different nature of business to business marketing poses unique challenges and raises issues that differ from issues arising from consumer marketing. The nature of demand, or the characteristics of demand for business products
Any B2B company -- whether operating a simple eCommerce store, client portal or combination of the two -- needs to captivate and compel its audience with personalized features, easy, mobile-optimized ordering and user-friendly architecture. In short, supplying a better customer experience is what 's required to land new customers and foster loyalty among established B2B buyers. The business-to-business buying process is more complicated than selling to consumers, but B2B customers want want B2C-type shipping integrations, personalized displays, drop shipping and
Functionality in B2B eCommerce websites depends on subsets of core and custom features, back-office tools, user interfaces, and even design considerations that affect what viewers see when they visit a website. Regardless of software platform, certain core business features are essential for highly functional B2B eCommerce websites, but how companies handle the various duties these features perform can determine success in competitive markets and impact every area of business operations. That 's why it 's critical to choose an operating platform where core business functions can be customized to specific industries and B2B models to foster greater functionality, appealing and intuitive interfaces for stakeholders, better communications and greater abilities to manage and monitor eCommerce operations throughout the buying and shipping cycles.
Business-to-business markets consist of companies that buy products or services to use in their own businesses or in making other products.
We then move to the buying organization and center, where the individual influences occur that is seen between the B2B buyers and sellers. According to Webster and Wind in 1972, “… the decision making process by which formal organizations establish the need for purchased products and services, and identify, evaluate and choose among alternative brands and suppliers” (Henneburg (a), 2014, p. 22). In the organization buying behavior, there are many influential aspects that need to be considered. The main question that must be answered is “Who is involved?” The buying center is made up of five different roles that are vital in the decision-making process. First are the users who are part of the
In conclusion, marketing for B2B and B2C markets are quite different. While marketing programs are the same, how they are executed, what they say, and the outcome of the marketing activities differ. B2B marketing is relationship driven while B2C marketing is more product driven. The market size also varies between B2B and B2C markets. B2B markets are measured in the "thousands" while B2C markets are measured in the "millions." Not only is the market different in B2B and B2C but so is the buyer. The business buyer understands the products or services and needs to buy the products or services to help the company to stay profitable, competitive, and successful. Therefore, B2B marketing must be more complex. Consumer buyers are looking for the best price and trust within the company and products. Therefore, B2C marketing needs to convince customer of their trust and loyalty. Brand building is also important in both B2B and B2C marketing but for different reasons. In B2B markets brand will only help a business be considered, not necessarily chosen. In B2C
For Better Books of Mackay to have a better understanding of what an E-Business is, a definition has been provided below. An E-business is a business which is conducted over the internet including the sale and purchase of goods. An E-business also provides customer support as well as services and information to allow businesses to communicate with customers as to what they want from the business. It also includes managing internal processes as well as the external processes such as marketing and the supply of goods and services. Although the way the business and its relationships are managed hasn’t changed from the traditional style of a brick and mortar business, E-businesses are commonly being known as B2C or B2B. The way in which E-business is defined is very broad. There are many facets which E-Business has including Information and Communication Technologies, Electronic Transactions, Customer Support, and Collaboration with Business Partners.
Transactions or trading that is done between two or more companies and does not include the final customer of products is considered to be a business-to-business model. (What is business-to-business (B2B)?, 2016) These types of businesses have distinct differences from business-to-customer companies that raise multiple marketing hurdles to jump. Some of these differences include longer sales cycles, more complex products or services, few identifiable buyers, less buyer research, and different channels for marketing strategies to use. (What Makes Business-to-Business Marketing Different?, 2016). These problems have increased the demand for improved content marketing strategies for companies in the business-to-business environment. Content marketing is the use of a strategic marketing approach focused on presenting valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a specific and identified audience. (Pulizzi, 2012) The increased demand for more and better content marketing has forced marketers to evaluate and develop marketing strategies focused on this type of marketing. According to research done by the Content Marketing Institute, marketers who document their strategy are more effective than companies that do not. (Pulizzi, 2014)