B2B vs B2C Marketing Strategies

Study Notes

Business to Business marketing involves creating relationships with other businesses rather than consumers, with a focus on providing quality products and services.
Examples include a school buying paper from a supplier.
B2B marketing strategies involve promoting products at trade fairs, networking, and face-to-face interactions.

Business to consumer marketing involves selling products directly to consumers for personal use.
B2C marketing strategies include:
- Persuading people to purchase.
- Carrying out market research.
- Promoting a brand.
- Identifying the benefits.
- Communicating to potential customers through targeted advertising.
This focus on individual consumers necessitates:
- Providing excellent customer service.
- Offering convenient distribution channels like online shopping, click and collect, and delivery.
- Creating short, clear advertising messages that highlight benefits.
- Emotional connections with products and suppliers.

Building customer loyalty is cheaper for businesses than constantly attracting new customers.
It involves creating products and services that ensure repeat purchases.
Strategies for building customer loyalty include:
- Offering loyalty schemes, discounts, and extras.
- Providing excellent customer service before, during, and after the purchase.

Mass market strategies cater to a wide audience, selling products in the same way to almost everyone regardless of demographics.
Media used includes mass media channels like TV, radio, and newspapers.
Large quantities produced result in lower average costs, leading to economies of scale and high profits.
Examples include:
- Perfume.
- Pop stars.
- Coca-Cola.
- Computers and Microsoft.

Niche markets target a specific subset of a market segment, focusing on a specific group with particular needs or interests.
Products are designed for a specific purpose.
Smaller turnover makes it less attractive for large firms to enter the market.
Inelastic demand allows for higher prices.
Media used includes specialist magazines, trade fairs, websites, word of mouth, and leaflets.

B2B marketing involves businesses selling goods and services to other businesses.
B2B transactions are typically larger in scale than B2C transactions.
Key characteristics of B2B marketing include:
- Building close relationships with customers.
- Providing informative and detailed advertising rather than persuasive messaging.
- Focus on quality products and services.

Business to consumer or B2C is selling to private individuals and households who buy goods and services for their own use.
Examples include clothes retailers and hairdressers.

Businesses purchase from other businesses:
- Goods for resale.
- Raw materials to make products.
- Consumables (products used up in production).
- Services needed for day-to-day operations.