28 Aug THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN B2B AND B2C

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN B2B AND B2C MARKETING

By Laura Lake | About.com

There is a difference between marketing to a business and marketing to a consumer, believe it or not. Although you are still selling a product to a person experience shows that the difference between these two types of markets runs deep.

When you market to a B2B you will realize these businesses work hard to streamline the buying process in order to save time and money. This often explains why a B2B purchase is based more on logic and why a consumer’s purchase is based more on emotion.

It is true that the cost of a sale for the business-to-business market is more expensive and typically higher than the business to consumer market. The easiest way to explain this is that a business-to-business transaction often takes more consideration.

Marketing to B2B

When you are marketing to a B2B you want to focus on the logic of the product. You do this by focusing on the features of the product. There is little to no personal emotion involved in the purchasing decision. You want to focus on understanding the organizational buyers and how they operate within the confines of their organization’s procedures. The B2B market has a thirst for knowledge and they are information seekers. Be more in-depth with your marketing materials. Your most effective marketing message will focus on how your product or service saves them time, money and resources.
Your business-to-business market is more interested in the logic behind your product. They will want to hear more about the features and how it will help them in saving time, money or resources.

Marketing to B2C

When you are marketing to a consumer you want to focus on the benefits of the product. Their decision is more emotional. Consumers are different in that they demand a variety of distribution channels for convenience, not so with the B2B market. Consumers are less likely to be interested in a lengthy marketing message. They will want you to get right to the point. Consumers don’t want to work to understand your benefits, instead they will want you to clearly point out the benefits to them. Your most effective marketing strategies will focus on the results and the benefits that your product or service will bring to them.

Your business-to-consumer market purchase more on emotion. They are more interested in the benefit of the product. They will want to hear more about how their product or service helps them and what benefits it brings to them personally.

For example consider this: My product is lotion. My lotion will moisturize the skin and relieve itching skin. If I have a B2B client they will be most interested in the feature of the client which is moisturizing the skin. If I have a B2C client they will be most interested in the benefit which is relief of itching skin.

We will be most effective in marketing if we understand what both markets need in order to make a decision.