Business to business and business to consumer marketing types have essentially the same fundamental principles. Both choose target markets and based from them, they make their marketing decisions, such as in coming up with prices of their service or good and selecting the type of distribution and promotion they would employ.
However, in the way the issues are addressed, there is a clear distinction. The nature of business buying is largely dependent on the professional buyers, multiple decision makers, and the potential of having long term relationships. This is unlike the business to consumer marketing, which depends on the single decision maker and has a short buying or sales cycle.
The business to business marketing generally focuses on functionality of the product rather than on anything else. It also has the capacity and resources to buy from the international markets.
The marketing does not focus on the emotional but rather on the logical decision making. If the business has to deal with a business that sells business, it if often that the business buyer has more knowledge about the product or service that it is looking for than the business marketing provider.
It is for this reason why the marketers must be wise and intelligent enough as to how to market, promote, and advertise their goods or services. Business to business marketing employs wider and more complex tactics. Anyone who wishes to utilize it must be patient and determined to learn the length of the ropes as there are many things to be learned about before one can actually use the methods involved in such.
They are appealing to a wider, more intelligent buyer group after all. Anything that the business to business marketer does will have to be based on what that intelligent target group wants, but does not also necessarily mean forgetting the end-users, which for this case, are the buying public or consumers.
You have to remember that the business buyer is buying your service or good because they believe that it will sustain their business, help improve its sales and profits by having wide consumer group patronizing it, and turn in more benefits for them.
What are the strategy differences?
In business to business marketing, the supply and demand made on a certain product or service is taken into account. The same is true in the kind of industry that the marketer is trying to sell the business for. Others to be considered are the trends in the wider market environment. It also has to deal not only with the direct business clients but their customers as well.
Business marketing targets comparably smaller base of clients, but these are the big clients in the industry. And because it is dealing with bigger clientele, it is expected that personalized marketing techniques are provided, so that the business buyer will no longer have to employ different techniques in order to sell the product or service.
And since the clients differ in their preferences, the business marketer might be required to tailor technique to each. And because of this, deeper relationship with each is expected to be developed between business to business provider and business buyer to meet the demands of each big client as well as to foster longevity in the industry.