While Busines-to-Business (B2B) marketing and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketing may share some similarities on the surface, once you start diving deeper you can quickly see that there are also many differences.

What is Business-to-Business Marketing?

With B2B marketing, your target customer is another business, which involves someone purchasing a good or service on behalf of their organization. This means that decisions are typically made more on the logic of the features and service provided as a benefit to the overall organization. Another key aspect with B2B is that there is typically a continued relationship established with your brand that is used to satisfy long-term needs. Marketing to businesses, typically involves higher priced product offerings that are governed by contractual agreements, which succeed by accurately defining the responsibilities of each party.

What is Business-to-Consumer Marketing?

Instead of serving other businesses as your customer base, B2C deals directly with the consumer. This means that you’re dealing with a single individual that is making a purchase for themselves. With most B2C transactions, a good or service is purchased on a one-time, as-needed basis. This results in most consumers not establishing a relationship with your brand as done with B2B marketing. They come to you for a current need and want immediate satisfaction. Without satisfying that need, they will just turn to the market and try to find another provider.

Are They Really That Different?

At the core of both strategies is the desire to sell a good or service for an agreed upon price, with the ultimate goal of delivering value to the customer. With both strategies, you have to ensure that there is adequate value being provided, otherwise, you’re unlikely to continue a relationship with that customer. You’ll often hear that B2B marketing lacks the emotional aspect so strongly supported with B2C marketing, but this glances over the fact that even business make emotional decisions. The big difference typically lies in the fact that the bigger picture is often considered more with B2B strategies, however, they still make decisions based off of how they interpret the value. It could be connected through that warm fuzzy feeling experienced when you have a positive experience or more directly through the satisfaction from realizing that your job is about to get much easier.

Which Strategy is Right for My Business?

This decision should be pretty apparent based off of the goods and services offered, however, we understand that it can still be confusing to distinguish between the two at times. We work with our clients to ensure that the strategy chosen is closely aligned with their business model to help maximize their gross revenue, and ultimately, their net profit. We’re experts with pivoting and process improvements so reach out to us today to see how we can help refine your approach.