B2B refers to relationships between one or more companies, whether they are goods or services. B2B marketing is not aimed at end customers (B2C), but at companies and independent individuals. The abbreviation accordingly stands for “Business to Business”. The advertising measures are tailored accordingly to this special clientele and take into account the special features that companies have to deal with: For example, a company can often not simply conclude a contract, but is obliged to long-running processes, which, for example, provide for the obtaining of a written offer. B2B advertising measures must clearly address such special features.
Successful B2B marketing
Instead of simple products that are largely self-explanatory and aim at a quick conclusion, as is usual in the end customer sector, B2B Marketing offers offers that can also be very complicated and in need of explanation, but are tailored to the needs of the customer.
Successful B2B marketing measures are based on a very good website of the advertiser, which bundles all communication channels, the use of social media and email marketing. The latter serves above all to keep in memory. Content marketing, ranging from blogs to videos, is also gaining in importance.
Special features in B2B marketing
• Thus, the sums and products implemented are partly different than in B2C marketing, private individuals eventually need in the rarest cases z. As a software for industrial machine control or accounting for several hundred employees.
• In particular, lead generation and thus customer acquisition have gained enormously in importance in B2B marketing in recent years. In doing so, marketing increasingly takes on sales-related tasks, because the potential customers are looked after by the marketing until they are really ready for the business. This can be achieved especially with the tools and techniques of inbound marketing high success. In 2014, major companies agreed that they would gain 54% more leads with inbound marketing than traditional outbound marketing. That means 54% more potential customers!
• From the point of view of B2B marketing, it is aimed at Buyer Personas. These are representatives of typical decision makers in a company, who represent their expectations and needs with regard to a product or service and provide deep insights into decision-making processes. B2B is also about people. When they talk to each other, they do not do so in their “function” as a private person, but as officials in a company. They then represent the controlling view, the purchasing view or the production manager view. But this is what creates a profitable Buyer Persona.
By definition, B2B marketing is about trade with another company, and B2C marketing deals with private customers. The target of these two types of marketing is therefore very different: limited in number, but specialized in Business to Business, much broader, but less expert in Business to Consumer. In fact, the companies targeted in B2B, already a priori better informed than the individual, do in addition a work of important research with experts for the analysis of their needs and the search for adequate solutions. It is therefore necessary to implement, in B2B, a marketing strategy that provides much more specific and specialized information than in B2C, because the customers are, in general, less aware of the proposed products and solutions. In the latter case, the use of simpler language works better with individuals.