Marketing B2B The B2C Way.

Since the advent of Internet, it has been extensively used by Businesses to promote their concerns and enhance their growth. Be it for simple correspondence or for marketing the products in the most innovative and unique manner. Internet has changed the way we buy, sell, consume, and especially market products. The expanding network of B2B and B2C portals testifies this fact in a convincing manner.

B2B v/s B2C, Similarities and Differences.

The thinking that “Marketing is Marketing”, be it in any form or medium, is considered to be outdated today. Today, businesses are interested in evolving specialized Marketing strategies for their products, according to the nature of the buyer and his needs. Inspite of the fact that in any kind of marketing, the sole motive is sale of the products, the techniques differ drastically. Especially when it comes to Business to Consumer in comparison to “Business to Business Marketing”, the entire motive of selling and buying changes. Some of the common features of both are listed below:

B2C Marketing

• Driven by product and its features
• Aim to ensure worth of the money spent
• Biggest Market to be targeted
• One Step buying process
• Creation of brand, via repetition and imagery
• Involves aggressive face to face marketing
• Influenced by status, desire, position of the buyer
• Influenced by the price of the commodity

B2B Marketing

• Driven by the relationship established between businesses.
• Prime importance of the “Respect” and ‘Trust” between the businesses.
• Small and Targeted market.
• Buying Process involving many steps.
• Brand identity created on the basis of trust factor.
• Involves educational marketing strategies.
• Buying decisions are taken on the basis of rational and calculated business concerns.

Learning from B2C Players

The B2B Portals can take many lessons from their counterparts dealing in the B2C segment. The monotonous way in which B2B Marketing takes place, often makes it boring for sellers and more importantly for the buyers. With usual concerns like emphasis upon product, overload of product information, selling through words, minimal feel in the marketing campaigns and other similar problems, the B2B Marketing Strategists and Analysts need to look at the way B2C Marketing takes place, and learn relevant lessons from thereon and implement them in their domain.

Some of the obvious lessons that B2B can learn are:

The Brand Value.

In case of B2B marketing, Brand only helps in being noticed by the buyers and not necessarily makes you the ideal choice of the buyers. Where as in B2C, Brand encourages the consumer to buy, remain loyal, and potentially pay a higher price.

Common Concerns of the buyers.

The common concerns among all buyers are common i.e. saving money, increasing productivity or raising profitability. However, in B2C segment, the marketing strategy of the product is decided by the factors like status, desire, position of the buyer, and the price of the commodity, which ultimately determines the prospects of the sale, where as in B2B, this has remained confined to the ones mentioned before. If B2B can improve upon this, there can be drastic change in their marketing methods.

Targeting the Buyers

The B2C Marketing has received accolades for exploiting the emotional side of the consumer, as they directly sell it to them for their personalized use. In case of B2B, this is totally reverse, the Buyers buy in order to sell it to their clients. However, if done in right way, the B2B Marketing can also offer a personalized feel to the buyers by targeting the prospective buyers of their immediate clients.

These are just some of the examples exemplifying the fact that B2B has loads to learn from the B2C segment, just that it needs to change its attitude and target in order to see the other side of the coin, which is much promising then the one they follow today.