The 7 Key Differences Between Business-to-Business and Consumer Marketing

By 1906 Sears was operating the largest mail order plant in the world, but that necessitated that the company’s focus shift from design dominance to products and process. Sears has entered the transitional stage of the Abernathy - Utterback Model. Sears is tasked with the need to handle mass orders economically and efficiently, and develops the ‘time scheduling system’, which brings chaos to the mail order industry and defines a significant core competence (Sears Archive, 2012). Around the same time, Sears’s customers are shifting their focus to quality, which drives the need to replace the fancy Sears catalog with a factual based catalog. Sears’s core competencies are innovation, mail order process, quality products, perceived value, and factual based advertisement (catalog).

In a group, several individuals may interact to influence the purchase decision. The typical roles in such a group decision can be summarised as follows:

Group forces influence buying because there may be a complex set of smaller decisions made or influenced by several individuals. The degree of involvement of each member varies. Three questions are taken into consideration when a decision is being considered, which organizational members take part in the buying process, what is each member’s relative influence in the decision, and what criteria are important to each. All of the deciders from Gentech worked as a group on the purchasing decision each had an involvement and came to a decision as a group.

Consider the last purchase you made in these categories: personal electronics, clothing, and vacation destination. To what extent was your purchase decision influenced by decision-making complexity, individual influences, social influences, and situational influences? What specific issues were the most influential in making the decision? How could a marketer have swayed your decision in each case?

It is very important in business that individuals have lucrative methods of communication in order to convey important messages, and use these methods in order to interact with other businesses and the public. Methods of communication can also be commonly used to advertise and market, for example via the use of social networks which advertise to a wide range of individual, to through written posters which can be placed up in shop advertisements and on notice boards alike.

2. List five examples of products that are commonly purchased as either business products or consumer products. How would the classification impact the marketing strategy? 1. Maintenance people are always going to need things repaired. Some people cannot repair things themselves or do not have the time. This will keep job for people and equipment being bought. 2. Materials people are going to always have a need for raw materials. People will need to produce these items keeping the market moving. 3. Clothing people are always in need of clothing through the season changes as well as the fashion trends. 4. Technology such as phones, cameras, mp3 players. These items are always upgrading and getting a new version. 5. Furniture styles are always changing on these items keeping stylist, builders, and manufactures in business.

Keeping in touch with established clients is vital to a wide assortment of businesses. Combining a campaign of contacting past or current customers while also courting new ones is ideal and for many enterprises direct mail printing provides this opportunity. Moreover, it does so in an economical and convenient manner that is less likely to elicit a negative reaction from customers than contacting them by phone or email.

In a business buying center there are five different roles. The first role are the users. These are the people who will be use the good or product. They influence the buying decisions because ultimately they will be the ones using the product. The second role are the gatekeepers. These personnel are the ones that give product data. They control what information the members of the buying center will review. The third role are the influencers. They are usually specialized staff that break down what the “pros” and “cons”

Sending catalogs, a powerful marketing tool, yields a 5-10% order rate among previous customers and a 1-2% order rate among previous recipients and contacts from rented mailing lists. The greatest potential growth market for the company are customers who are not accustomed to the mail

When trying to communicate a sound and creative solution to a problem, it is important to persuade the target audience. In many instances, communications of this type fail to reach an agreement with the target audiences. When a company fails to reach this agreement it often ends in bad business or lost accounts, and there is a great example of failing to persuade the target audience within the Raymond Storage Concepts Inc.’s sales team. The latest example of a lost account is when the RSCI dealership tried to pitch their Radio Shuttle as a new material handling practice to ABC Company. Although the Radio Shuttle is a great product, it was RSCI’s job to persuade their audience to buy this product, to defeat their main competitor, Cardinal Carryor.

Write to customers in their terms and on their level so that the advertiser's sales message is more readily received.

Most business communications can be prepared by following one of three patterns or methods of development: Direct Order, Indirect Order, or Persuasive Order. This lecture will discuss the direct order that is used for most routine, good-news and goodwill messages.

Working for a myriad of clients from different industries, we understand how stressful it is to meet everyone 's expectations. That’s why we offer a comprehensive service to all marketing and advertising agencies. From determining the most suitable format to providing the final sample so you can approve before final printing, we’re here to help you succeed!

Ask the average case-bred business school student about revolutionary marketers, and you'll most likely hear about Amazon, Dell, and perhaps Saturn—all companies that turned industries on their ears by dumping the conventional business model and taking an entirely different approach. Some might mention IBM or Intel, two companies that transformed their businesses and successfully resuscitated their brands. But there's a new case on the block, one so inspiring it may match the popularity and instructional value found in these other notable examples.

The fourth stage consists of individual and environmental influences that affect all five stages of the decision process. Individual characteristics include motives, values, lifestyle, and personality; the social influences are culture, reference groups, and family. Situational influences, such as a consumer’s financial condition, also influence the decision process. (Engel, 1995)