The relationship existing between two businesses in which no end consumers are involved is called the business to business marketing. It is commonly known as B2B and is nothing new in the industry; although with the gigantic rise of technological advancement, the marketing type has come to embrace the changes as well.

Before the term business to business or B2B became popular, the relationship between these enterprises is largely known as the capital goods or industry goods marketing. These names distinguish the B2B marketing to the other type of marketing, the B2C or business to consumer.

The difference and similarity of B2B and B2C

Business to business marketing is in contrast to the business to consumer marketing, in which the relations existing happen between business and end consumers. In B2C marketing, the business has direct contact with the consumers to encourage them to make their purchase decisions favorable to the company and be loyal through the years. But B2B marketing does not deal with the consumers, although customers are the end users who will consume the service or product it markets.

The complicated process of B2B makes its different with the B2C. Many people are involved in the decision making process in B2B; thus making the whole method complex that if one is not quite knowledgeable about it, it can be difficult executing the programs of business to business marketing.

In the case of B2C, only one person is involved in creating the final decision. Or when a special package is being offered, only one person makes the decision resulting to fast buying decisions. There is another major difference existing between the B2B and B2C and this is in terms of the buying decisions. While in B2C the purchasing decision of the consumers is more based on wants, the business does its buying decision based on its needs.

But there are also some similarities existing between the two. For both marketing types, competition is increasing while decrease in the resources is occurring. Because of this, most small businesses suffer from the lost loss of share in the market. In conjunction with this, there is also a falling activity going on the profit margins. This has resulted to great demand on marketing data specifically for these two business marketing types and the small business marketing.

The significance of business to business marketing

Creating an excellent product or service, having a competitive process and the best technology available is not enough to be keep growing in the competitive world of today’s business. Strategizing; through the use of B2B marketing is important as it helps identify, locate, quantify, segment, and target the customers who are considered really significant in the growing of the business.

By using the business to business marketing techniques, it will become easier for the business to achieve its goals. It allows you to concentrate on the performance of each marketing channel involved. The marketing channels, which may include service partners, retailers, reseller networks, and distributors, can be monitored and evaluated so that those that perform weak may be eliminated and those that produce desirable results may best be focused on.

As a final note, I believe it’s worthwhile you note that B2B and B2C are very important to the growth of a business; whether big or small.