B2B Marketing

12 Key excerpts on "B2B Marketing"

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  eBook - PDF

  Business Marketing Face to Face

  • Chris Fill, Scot McKee(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Goodfellow Publishers

    (Publisher)

  In B2B markets, by contrast, the development and maintenance of positive relationships between buying and selling organisations is pivotal to success. Collaboration and partnership over the development, supply and support of products and services is considered a core element of B2B Marketing. Indeed, Morgan and Hunt (1994) recognise this when they refer to relationship market-ing and the importance of marketing activities that seek to establish, develop and maintain successful exchanges with customers. Unlike consumer markets, where relationships are often considered to revolve around an active seller and a passive buyer, understanding of relationships in B2B markets now encompasses networks of relationships in which participants are regarded as interactive. This means that both buyers and sellers are actively involved in initiating and main-taining relationships. All parties to a network have the capability to influence a wide range of relationships, either directly or indirectly. The importance of this aspect of B2B Marketing cannot be underestimated nor should it be understated. This book adopts a relationship-based marketing perspective. An Introduction to Business Marketing 9 1 Types of Organisational Customers „ Business-to-business marketing was previously referred to as industrial market-ing, but this phrase failed to recognise the involvement of a range of other, non-industrial enterprises. For example, governments and the not-for-profit sector also contribute a significant amount of commercial activity. Think about the economic transactions necessary to support the prison and military services. The sheer volume and value of pharmaceutical and medical supplies necessary to provide adequate health services, alone represent a major slice of the B2B sector. In addition, charities and institutions generate a substantial level of economic transactions.

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  Marketing

  A Critical Textbook

  • Nick Ellis, James Fitchett, Matthew Higgins, Gavin Jack, Ming Lim, Michael Saren, Mark Tadajewski(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  6

  Taking a Different Look at Business-to-Business Marketing

   

  6.1  Introduction

  Popular debates about marketing have tended to prioritise consumer markets. One of the reasons for this is that we are all familiar with the experience of being a consumer. The marketing literature has tended to reflect this popular experience by focusing on the interactions between firms and end consumers. While understanding consumers is of course important to marketers it is also necessary to recognise that most marketing activities take place between (and within) organisations. Most businesses sell their products and services to other businesses, not to end consumers, and the characteristics of ‘business to business’ (B2B) interactions are not the same as those in ‘business to consumer’ (B2C) interactions.

  For most of its history B2B Marketing has been the more under-represented and less visible side of the marketing discipline. It is interesting to note, however, that many recent innovations and new ideas in marketing have emerged from B2B settings which have then been translated into B2C contexts. One of the most important recent developments in marketing theory has been the trend to move away from examining single transactions and purchases and to instead consider the on-going relationships that exist between sellers and buyers. Many if not most transactions that we undertake either as consumers or businesses are only a single event in an on-going series of interconnected interactions. In some cases these interactions and relationships may last for many years. This raises a number of important issues and themes: how do firms build relationships with other firms, and how do these relationships play out over the medium to long term? It also requires us to consider the power differences between businesses of different sizes, influence and status, and the broader consequences that this may have on the operation and function of marketing.

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  Entrepreneurial Marketing

  Sustaining Growth in All Organisations

  • Ian Chaston(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  276 B2B Marketing CHAPTER AIMS (1) Introduce B2B Marketing processes. (2) Examine B2B Marketing strategies and policies. (3) Review B2B market innovation. (4) Review the utilisation of business networks. (5) Examine the utilisation of the social media. 15.1 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES The ultimate destiny of all firms is determined by final customer demand. In the case of B2B operations forecasting future demand is complicated by the exist-ence of what is known as ‘derived demand’. This is based upon the fact that ulti-mately B2B company sales are not determined by the purchase behaviour of the firm’s customers but by the activities of organisations further downstream in the supply chain. The performance of these latter entities is in turn controlled by the prevailing trends in consumer purchasing behaviour. Thus, for example an elec-tronics company might develop a new, low-energy microchip which is used as a component by a company manufacturing security alarms which are marketed by distributors who provide security services to owners of upmarket houses. In this case the derived demand for the new microchip is determined by the number of consumers who decide to have their home security systems upgraded. Another feature of B2B markets is that the number of customers is usually much lower than in a consumer market, and, furthermore, each of these cus-tomers usually purchases a significant proportion of a supplier’s total sales. In some cases, the B2B firm is engaged in supplying components or services which are utilised by larger companies for incorporation into the products that they 15 B2B Marketing 277 manufacture. This output may be sold to another B2B customer (e.g. vehicles sold to truck fleet operators) or via an intermediary to a consumer market (e.g. vehicles sold to the general public).

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  Business-to-Business Marketing

  How to Understand and Succeed in Business Marketing in an Emerging Africa

  • Richard Owusu, Robert Hinson, Ogechi Adeola, Nnamdi Oguji, Richard Afriyie Owusu(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Productivity Press

    (Publisher)

  In the wake of increased globalisation, organisations operate beyond the domestic market to establish business relationships in international markets, thereby making B2B Marketing gain more prominence (Samiee et al., 2015; Leonidou & Hultman, 2019). Despite enormous frontiers, which B2B Marketing activities have covered, they still must operate within the scope of meeting the needs of the target market where they operate (Grönroos, 1989). The composition of a market notwithstanding, appropriate marketing of products and services demands that the business must know and understand the needs of the target audience. Maintaining good relationship becomes a critical factor in understanding the needs of the target audience. The changing definition of marketing reflects the importance of relationship marketing which is a key success factor in B2B relationships.

  As stated in the introduction, the American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (American Marketing Association, 2017). The definition reflects the current focus of marketing on value exchange (Brodie et al., 1997; Griesienė, 2014). The new paradigm of marketing (i.e. value and relationship marketing) which has evolved over the years covers marketing from the perspective of service marketing (Gronroos, 1990; Brodie et al., 1997); inter-organisational exchange relationship (Håkansson, 1982; Ford, 1990; Hallen et al., 1991; Brodie et al., 1997); network relationship (Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Johanson & Mattsson, 1985; Brodie et al., 1997); relationship in value chains (Normann & Ramirez, 1993; Brodie et al., 1997); and information technology between and within organisations (Scott Morton, 1991; Brodie et al., 1997).

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  Business marketing management in a Business-to-Business context

  • D.P. Warne(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Society Publishing

    (Publisher)

  25 Business Marketing Management in a Business-to-Business Context 2 Offering a great product or service doesn’t guarantee that individuals will buy what your business sells. You need to market your product or service to potential customers. You can market the product to everyone, but casting a broad net doesn’t mean you’ll get more sales. You require a target market. Identifying your company’s target market allows you to narrow down your effort in order to promote your product to people who might buy, rather than wasting resources and time marketing to everybody (Yang & Gabrielsson, 2017). Effective marketing is hard to find. When developing a marketing strategy, marketers must make numerous trade-offs between creative requirements, budget constraints, and channel decisions. However, the biggest determinant of effective marketing is your target audience. If you don’t properly target your consumer personas, your promotions and ads are likely to drop on deaf ears. You may as well not do any marketing at all. However, the audience that differs the most is between individual consumers and companies. Some businesses serve individual buyers, whereas others serve companies and organizations. Corporate marketing is very different from marketing to individual consumers. Hence, a completely different approach to marketing – B2B Marketing is needed. 1.1. RESEARCH AND SELECTION OF TARGET MARKET Figure 1.1: Market segmentation on consumption across communication classes Source: https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/70488 Managing the Marketing Process and Marketing Planning 3 The target market comprises a group of people who can benefit from the company’s products or services. Among the best ways to identify a target market is to begin with what you offer. What concerns or customer problems does the product solve? What features and benefits do customers enjoy from using the product? Determine who will benefit most from the product or service (Wang et al., 2008).

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  Complete B2B Online Marketing

  • William Leake, Lauren Vaccarello, Maura Ginty(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Sybex

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 1

  Understanding B2B Online Marketing

  Let’s face it: business-to-business (B2B) marketing is different. It is certainly different than those deal-of-the-day sites that popped up in 2010, multiplied like rabbits, and lurked around every corner in 2011. If you are tired of listening to case studies showing you how easy it is to increase sales on some ecommerce site or exhausted by going to webinars endlessly hawking some vendor’s wares while promising the moon, then this is the book for you.

  We will cover what is crucial for today’s successful B2B marketer. We will show you how to market your business—a business with a complex and considered sales cycle—online. Say good-bye to irrelevant case studies and hello to practical information and real strategies you can apply to your business today, tomorrow, and one year from now.

  Chapter Contents

  • Why Online?
  • B2B Is Different
  • Developing Your Strategy
  • How Online Reflects the Sales Funnel: Objectives and Measurement

  Why Online?

  You are a B2B marketer. Your sales happen over the course of months, not minutes, so you can just scrap this whole online marketing thing, right? Just segment your list, send off emails for lead nurturing, write killer collateral material for sales, attend some events, let your agency put together some dimensional mailer campaigns, and your job is done and your company makes money. Other books may tell you that, but if you follow their advice, then over time your competitors will be happy, but your bosses won’t be. The world of traditional lead generation (direct mail, email plus teleprospecting) is dead; it is time to embrace the changing, integrated marketing landscape, or you will be left behind.

  Everyone—from the guy in the facilities management office to the CEO—uses the Internet to read, browse, surf, chat, and socialize, and online marketing is the tool to get in front of your audience. You want to get in front of them before they look for your product, while they are actively searching, and then when they need customer support.

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  Integrated Marketing Communication

  Advertising and Promotion in a Digital World

  • Jerome M. Juska(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  B2B and consumer marketing have many things in common when it involves IMC. B2B communication utilizes the same IMC pathways to reach customers and potential buyers. These six pathways are advertising, sales promotion, public relations, brand visibility, digital platforms, and personal contact. However, the budgets are lower, the target audiences are different, and the channels are more specialized.

  Figure 12.1 lists the eight most frequently used strategies for B2B Marketing communication: inbound marketing, vertical media, horizontal media, industry trade shows, co-op advertising, merchandising support, online catalogs, and virtual showrooms.

  Figure 12.1 B2B Communication Strategies

  Inbound Marketing

  Inbound marketing is the reverse approach to traditional marketing. The assumption is that online search enables B2B companies to find the products and services they need without the assistance of a sales person. So, in the age of online search, B2B shoppers can always find you. That sounds impossible, but it’s true. So, how do B2B shoppers become B2B customers? There are six essential inbound marketing methods, which are shown in Figure 12.2 . These are complimentary consulting, industry reports, trending topics, free webinars, video tutorials, and data infograms. Inbound marketing is the reverse of consumer marketing, where manufacturers are aggressively pursuing customers with extensive advertising and sales promotion. Inbound marketing is more passive. Techniques such as industry reports and free webinars are the lure that attracts potential buyers to visit a company’s website. The information provided is an important step toward establishing trust and building a relationship.

  Figure 12.2 Inbound Marketing Techniques

  The largest and most successful inbound marketing company is Hubspot. It was the pioneer of inbound marketing and has earned a reputation for providing small and mid-size business with the tools needed for successfully attracting new customers. The Hubspot website describes the company as a “business-oriented growth model that attracts visitors, engages leads, and delights customers.” They have multiple packages, including comprehensive Customer Relationship Management software and automated business resources that are designed for internal growth and customer retention as well as expansion. This includes tracking leads and contact along with providing customer support. There is a famous case study about Hubspot that is used in business school for evaluating the types of programs that best fit each company’s goals. Hubspot’s own marketing strategies includes simple but valuable information to attract new clients, such as free webinars, industry reports, and data infograms. If you are not familiar with the products and services of Hubspot, then go to www.hubspot.com

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  Business-to-Business Brand Management

  • Mark S. Glynn, Arch G. Woodside, Mark S. Glynn, Arch G. Woodside(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Emerald Group Publishing Limited

    (Publisher)

  Because of the smaller customer base and the importance and power of the larger customers, suppliers are frequently expected to customize their offerings to individual business customer needs. Business buyers often select suppliers who also buy from them Table 1. ( Continued ) KEVIN LANE KELLER 14 of the differences between B2B and consumer marketing. The latter five differences in particular very directly affect best branding practices. Out-lined in the following section, are key branding issues and those implications of particular interest to B2B marketers. BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS BRANDING GUIDELINES Regardless of the nature of the industry or market involved, six basic branding guidelines can be offered for B2B marketers, as follows (see Table 3 for summary). Ensure the Entire Organization Understands and Supports Branding and Brand Management Fully recognizing and embracing the potential of branding throughout the organization is the first and most critical step in building a strong B2B brand. Unfortunately, many B2B organizations are burdened with skeptics who do not really understand branding and, as a consequence, do not really believe in the value of branding. They may mistakenly equate branding with naming or identity standards or view branding as only the responsibility of marketers at consumer product companies. To counteract these forces, internal branding activities need to be designed so that all members of the organization are properly aligned with the brand. Employees must have a complete, up-to-date understanding of the vision for the brand and how they can help achieve that vision. Internal branding involves a whole host of different programs and activities, such as training, communications, monitoring, performance appraisal, and so on ( Davis & Dunn, 2002 ; Pringle & Gordon, 2001 ; Gad, 2000 ; Ind, 2004 ). Table 3. Six Key Business-to-Business Branding Guidelines.

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  Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts

  • Ira Torresi(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  5.

  Translating Promotional Material

  Business-to-Business

  This chapter outlines first of all the main features of business-to-business (B2B) promotional communication in terms of information-to-persuasion ratio and distribution context. Next, it illustrates a variety of B2B promotional texts, which are characterized by different information-to-persuasion ratios, which are in turn influenced by their contexts of distribution.

  5.1

  B2B promotional texts

  Business-to-Business (or B2B) promotional texts are produced by a commercial enterprise to promote its products or services to one or more other commercial enterprises that are regular or prospective customers of the source company.

  The bulk of B2B communication occurs between companies in the same market segment. Since these segments may be quite specialized, target enterprises are typically well informed about the kinds of products/services they need. Their requirements will be mainly related to increasing production, enhancing quality and/or cutting costs. For this reason, B2B promotion tends to be technical and information-oriented rather than based on persuasive devices; in other words, its information-to-persuasion ratio is rather high. The persuasiveness of this kind of promotion is often based on the amount and quality of information provided, and on the neutral, impartial style in which it is presented. Additionally, target companies usually have qualified technical staff able to assess whether or not the object of promotion meets their needs, and whether the source company’s promotional communication is accurate and complete.

  From a translator’s point of view, therefore, omitting or over-generalizing what the inexperienced reader may perceive as small technical details or trifles, or failing to identify a translation that the source company deems fitting for monoreferential terms (i.e. terms which have only one referent in the real world) or other technical words, may lead to the translation being rejected by the client (the source company), seen as inappropriate by one of the target companies, or at the very least less functional with respect to its promotional purpose. Any of these outcomes would cause the source company to lose money, mainly in terms of prospective profits, even if its regular customers/clients would probably overcome the language barrier. Obviously, this could potentially negatively impact the translator’s work and career.

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  Contemporary Issues in Marketing

  Principles and Practice

  • Ayantunji Gbadamosi(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Why are relationships important to the B2B marketer? The sales representative of a supplier must forge strong ties with the members of the DMU of the buying organisation to be able to make sales. Hence, personal selling is a key function in the process of developing and nurturing relationships and building networks. Imagine if you were the buyer and a sales representative calls and you perceive her as unprofessional, unfriendly and technically deficient. Would you do business with such a rep and her company? I am sure your answer would be a resounding no! To establish rapport with the buyer, you must demonstrate an understanding of their needs and clearly show how your product(s) can satisfy these needs more efficiently and effectively.

  Here are some specific reasons why it’s essential to develop and maintain cordial relationships with customers in B2B Marketing:

  • gives rise to fewer conflicts
  • there is greater understanding, leading to higher collaboration
  • leads to synergistic effects and outcomes of relationships
  • engenders enhanced performance outcomes: higher revenues, profits, etc.
  • achieves organisational effectiveness and success.

  For all intents and purposes, developing relationships is an essential part of modern marketing, but several issues arise as buyers and sellers interact and engage in the exchange business. Relationship-based theories and variables provide conceptual yet practical insight into the nature of relationships between organisations. So, what are these contemporary marketing issues related to buyer–seller relationships that determine a firm’s B2B Marketing performance?

  Contemporary Issues in Buyer–Seller Relationships

  Key issues that arise in buyer–seller relationships include the following:

  • Relationships with suppliers: this relates to the extent to which suppliers cooperate and coordinate. Closer cooperation will lead to higher levels of relationships and vice versa. Use of technology (digital media, internet, etc.) is helpful here.
  • Level of adaptations required

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  Humanizing B2B

  The new truth in marketing that will transform your brand and your sales

  • Paul Cash, James Trezona(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Practical Inspiration Publishing

    (Publisher)

  2 B marketing, in which constant innovation and customer engagement has become more than a canny strategy for ambitious, upwardly mobile companies – it’s become an absolute necessity for survival. A relatively consistent and predictable world, in which market leaders enjoyed economies of scale and achieved dominance over smaller rivals, has long given way to a more unpredictable environment in which dominant market ‘gorillas’ are increasingly vulnerable to the guerrilla strategies of faster, more creative opponents.

  The five principles of growth in B2B

  In 2019, the B2 B Institute at LinkedIn (B2 Bi @ LinkedIn), frustrated with the paucity of research material on B2 B brand building, commissioned brand effectiveness luminaries Les Binet and Peter Field to carry out original research on the fundamentals of B2 B marketing. Surely, thought the B2 Bi @ LinkedIn, we instinctively know that we buy from brands rather than faceless companies, so why wasn’t there more evidence-based research on the subject? And why did B2 B not seem to understand the long-term value of brands? To answer this, Binet and Field used the UK IPA Databank, one of the world’s best sources of information on marketing effectiveness, to see which B2C and B2 B strategies worked best. They discovered some interesting patterns in the data which show that B2 B has much to learn from B2C. If you want more of a nuts-and-bolts rundown of the research, you’ll find it later in the chapter ‘The undeniable facts’; what follows is a useful summary to get you thinking.

  The resulting report7 is a goldmine of information which, in our view, is essential reading for any B2 B marketer wanting to transform their company’s fortunes. In summary, it shows that ‘a number of key growth drivers in B2C marketing also work for B2 B businesses, and by implication that there is a much greater commonality in best practice across B2C and B2 B sectors than is usually believed’, which is just a somewhat dry way of advising B2

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  Relationship Marketing

  Theory and Practice

  • Francis Buttle, Francis Buttle, SAGE Publications, Inc.(Authors)
  • 1996(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  4 Business-to -business relationships Pete Naude and Christopher Holland Introduction Marketing in a business-to-business context has undergone a number of changes in perspective over the years. At first, attempts to understand such marketing relied on extending the prevailing (predominantly American) view of consumer marketing. This was a fairly simplistic black-box or input/output approach that relied on the marketer manipulating a set of variables (i.e. the four Psi in order to maximize the desired return from the marketplace. The perspective of the buyer-seller relationship was overwhelmingly an adversarial and short-term one. In the 1980s, largely through the pioneering work of the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group (Hak ansson, 1 982), it was appreciated that this did not sufficiently reflect the complexities of how business-to-business markets operated. Rather, it was argued, such marketing was often long term, and involved buyers and sellers interacting to their mu-tual benefit, which in turn required levels of trust and commitment that could not be accommodated in the simpler adversarial model. This new perspective involved a fundamental change in the unit of analysis in researching business-to-business markets. Initially, the approach adopted was to study the buying centre or the selling process (Robinson, Faris and Wind, 1 967; Webster and Wind, 1 972; Sheth, 1973). What evolved was a wider model, expanding the unit of analysis from studying the behaviour of the buyer(s) or the seller(s) to the relationship between them (see, for example, Ford, 1 980; Hak ansson, 1 982; Campbell, 1985). Naturally, the people and the personal inter-relationships between them form a crucial part of this model. In this chapter we argue that a new perspective is emerging. It seems to us that a new paradigm is required: not one that rejects the IMP framework, but one that builds upon it.

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