What is B2B Business and marketing? Are you coming to know about this term for the first time ever? If you are having a small business and want to grow it fast, then you must know what is B2B business, B2B marketing, and B2C also.
Business is a huge world which has no end anywhere, and marketing is a must matrix to sustain and grow your business.
So, you must have a deep knowledge of fundamentals of each aspect of business that can make your business stable forever.
There is not only one type of business and not only one type of customer or consumer for your business.
Business has many variants,like trading business, manufacturing business, affiliation business, and many other types.
Same as marketing has different types, which differs with the type of customers, there is a difference between the customer and consumer.
Difference Between Customer and Consumer
We often use the terms customer, clients, and consumer for the buyers who purchase the product from us.
But we are not clear with the difference between the customer and consumer, consumer is a customer.
Customer means a person who buys a product from you and pays you for that product, and consumer means a person who utilizes your product.
For example, you purchase a shirt for your son from my shop, then you are my customer and your son is my consumer.
And in the second case where you purchased a shirt from my shop for yourself, then you are my customer as well as consumer.
You might be thinking, why I explored this concept here, because you will need the knowledge of this concept in B2B business and B2B marketing strategies.
B2B V/S B2C
First of all let me know the full form of both terms.
- B2B : Business to Business
- B2C : Business to Customer/Consumer
These both are marketing strategies as well which increases your business growth on a fast track if you execute them properly.
If your business is B2B, then there are many legit sites who are promoting your products to your customers who need your products for their customers.
What is B2B Business – What is Business to Business
You might still not be clear about what B2B Business is, so you do not need to think much more, I will explain to you with a valid example.
Here, one more new term is going to be introduced which is B2B Product.
If your product is going to solve the problem of any entire business, or else your product is used to simplify anyone’s business, then your product is called a B2B product, and your business is called B2B business.
For example, your company is making a software by which any company can manage the account of the entire company, or it can manage the Customer’s database, then your software is called a B2B product.
Hence, you are making the kind of products which enable the business owners to make their business smoother, so your business is called the B2B Business.
Now, a company, with whom you are selling your products, may be your customer or consumer, and the marketing strategies are quite different from the B2C Business.
Best Examples For B2B Business
The two best examples of B2B Business are Indiamart and TradeIndia.
Indiamart and Tradeindia are gaining the customers for your business by offering a payment security, but how do they work, have you ever known?
Let’s suppose you are a manufacture of candles, so it’s obvious that your focus will be on the bulk selling.
A single person will not buy the candles for his personal use in his home, right? So you will be looking for a person or firm who is using candles for his business purpose.
He might be a wholesaler or retailer of candles selling, and he is your potential customer.
Indiamart lists your products on its portals, and shows them who are finding the wholesalers or manufacturers of candles for their business.
Whenever any business owner of candle trading is interested, and takes any action on your listing, Indiamart notifies you about that and you can make a good deal.
These B2B sites fetch the customers for wholesale products, machinery, and other products, hence there are also B2B sites for digital products as well like softwares, applications, and other digital products.
Marketing Tips For B2B Business
The marketing strategies of B2B are quite different from B2C, and you must be more careful, because, here you are not going to convince any individual customer or consumer, you are going to promote your product to the business.
In B2B, you market your products to the firm, or company which measures its every purchase in terms of profit and loss, and always conclude how much benefit they are going to get from your product.
So, there are many things which must be taken care while dealing, or making products as well, which I am going to share in next words.
Concern With Decision Making Authority of Business
After understanding what B2B Business is, you are clear with the products and other aspects, but one very sensitive aspect that you should take care of is the communication person of the company.
While presenting your product for your customer company, you should concern yourself with the person or board who has authority to make a major decision.
If you have gone for B2B Marketing, and if you are concerned with a non authority person, the chances of sales decrease.
When you communicate with a non authoritative person, he or she has very limited rights to approve your product, he must consent to the approval from the higher authority.
Let’s go in more depth with an example, let’s suppose you found a company, and you are going there for marketing of your product.
When you meet with a purchase manager of their company, it’s quite obvious that a purchase manager will not be as prudent as the CEO or Owner of the company, who has a basic thinking limited to purchase only.
He might not be able to conclude the benefit of the company by utilizing your product, well, you would be feeling confident with this kind of person as a sales person, because he would not be as qualified and educated as you.
Even if you convince him, and he has no right to make a sensitive decision, your convenience is meaningless, so try to interact with an authoritative person only while promoting your product to any business or company.
Identification of Problem
Not only for the B2B Business, for every nature of business, the problem of the audience is the prime key of your business which will convert that audience into your customers.
While doing B2B marketing, you must be aware of your customer’s problem, because B2B is quite different from B2C that I mentioned earlier in this article.
In B2C, a customer’s luxury is more than his problem, while in B2B, Business has problems that you are going to solve.
So, here you must be aware of the problem of that business which you are going to solve, if you went there and started presenting your products and services for that business.
Until you identify the problems of that business, it’s meaningless to do so, because whenever you promote your product or service to any businessman, he relates them with his problems and business.
A businessman has too many problems and he wants to generate more profit from his business.
When you notify that person exactly with an explanation how your product or service is going to solve his problem in which way, how you would improve his business’ profit, then he might be interested to avail your service or purchase your product.
Offer Various Proposals
In order to explain this strategy, let me explain by my own example which will make sense in a better way.
I have a wholesale garment business (currently run by my team), and an executive came to me for registration of my business on Indiamart.
He offered me the 5 packages for availing the service which would generate leads for my business, it was quite a new experience for me.
But he had a small package of only 8,000/- rupees which I availed for the tasting purpose, and I got a very good return in terms of customers and profit, and today I am using their premium package of Rupees 52,000/- per month.
If they would have only one package, it’s possible that I could not be convinced by them because they would not have an option, and as a businessman, I can not invest directly without having such stats and results, right?
When you promote your business for another business, always offer them varieties in service or products, because there are many businessmen like me, who do not invest or purchase a product or service without date, or experience.
When you provide the multiple products or services with (quality variance) for the same purpose, the customer has more options which increases the possibilities of generating the sales for your business.
These B2B business techniques are generally implemented for the large scale business, but what if you have a small business and you want to grow quickly, is there any method?
Yes, there is, and it is called B2B2C.
I believe you might be hearing about this business strategy for the first time, because very few people hold knowledge about B2B2C business marketing strategies.
B2B2C Business and Marketing Strategy
What if you are having a small business, where you want to acquire more customers, and you do not have enough budget to compete with the brands who are your strong competitors?
Here is the solution, and it is B2B2C Business, which is the proper combination of B2B Business and B2C Business.
You have a business of some products, and your customer also has a business of that product, now, you are selling your products to your customer’s customers by using your customer.
I know you are still confused, let me clear with a live example.
For example, if you are a kitchen manufacturer, if you find a customer directly who wants to modify the advanced kitchen, you will have to spend a lot of money to find a customer.
Now, here you can acquire more customers for your kitchen business by spending very less money.
You will tie up with a builder who has the business of construction of flats, and he will be providing you the customers, and you will be paying him a small commission per one customer acquisition.
You can tie up with many builders who will be driving too many customers for you forever.
Another live example is the B2B2C business strategy of Credit Card companies, making transactions through credit card is a sale for the credit card company.
Now, you might have observed that credit card companies only offer you the card, they do not approach you to make a transaction directly, then they encourage you to make a transaction through the credit card. Have you ever focused on this point?
They are adopting the B2B2C Business Marketing Strategy, where they tie up with that business who has a lot of credit card users.
They approach the theaters, electronics stores and companies, online shopping portals, to approach the customers to make the transaction through their credit card by giving cashback, discount and other cheesy offers.
Jet Airways Example
Jet Airways promotes the expensive tourism and travel bags to its business class customers, is jet airways making those expensive travel bags?
No, definitely Not! Those expensive travel bags are being manufactured by the other travel bag manufacturers, but they are making the expensive products which may not be affordable for every class of customers.
So, that manufacturer needs to target the particular audience for its trading, and that’s why they tie up with those businesses who already have high economy class customers, and it can acquire more customers by paying a small commission to B2B customers.
Now, in all examples, you should note that the amount to pay as a commission to the B2B customer is too less than running the marketing campaign to reach the customers directly.
Conclusion
B2B Business and B2C Business are quite different from each other, you must have to identify your product or service whether it is a B2B product or B2C product.
If your product is B2B ,and you are presenting your product to any company with the B2C marketing strategies, it will not work, because there is a huge difference between B2B customers and B2C customers as well.
