What is B2B and B2C in marketing?

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The B2B is the acronym for business to business , which refers to business models in which the transactions of goods or the provision of services occur between two companies (individuals or not) , therefore, it is mainly related to trade wholesaler, although it can also refer to the provision of services and consumption of content.

Paul Hague, Nick Hague and Matthew Harrison, authors of B2B Marketing: What Makes it Special define it as: “knowing the needs of other businesses, but knowing that in the end, the demand for the products made by them will end up being used by consumers individuals in their homes ”, a fact that must be taken into account for the marketing strategy.

Although it started in the traditional economy, with the change in technology and the appearance of ICTs, it was part of e-commerce , using electronic payment services such as authorizations for credit cards or electronic wallets.

After a first attempt to develop business models focused on the end consumer, pioneering Internet companies found it more affordable to try to develop business models focused on other companies. On the one hand, the computer pool was larger, required less investment in advertising and marketing, and much higher average values per transaction. This explains why it will develop faster than e-commerce directed to the individual customer.

Currently, enormous opportunities have been opened for the development of B2B business models due, among others, to the following reasons:

• Speed and security in communications.
• Ease of process integration and internal communication: intranets, extranets.
• Possibility of expanding the scope in which to find partners with whom to collaborate.
• Cheaper of pre-sale processes: virtual meetings, request for proposals, online auction of contracts.

There are several advantages of B2B for companies, although it is important to note that B2B and B2C actions can be carried out by the same company (both in parallel and sequentially in time), each constituting a phase of the process sale of the good or service.

• Time saving. B2B marketing has the function of creating a brand image and promoting personal contacts. Although it involves a consolidation process, if it works, it is easier to have a presence in the market than to limit yourself to B2C actions focused on the end customer.

In other words, being prestigious or considered a specialist in a subject makes it easier to sell without much need to disperse efforts.

• Saving money. Related to saving time, if the B2B work has been done correctly, the positive brand image that is created will help to avoid spending more resources than strictly necessary on B2C marketing actions.
• Personalization. As the goods and services offered are increasingly similar, and there is greater competition, offering something different becomes a market necessity.

The B2B marketing service serves to position a company in the sector with its own identity, while the B2C works with emotional elements of a more primary nature, which are those that operate in the end consumer and are common.

• Higher billing per customer. While it is true that making a customer in B2B is more complicated than in B2C, both due to the potential market and the complexity of the demand (which means that a purchase can take months), it is also true that the turnover is older and tends to be more concentrated.

The business model . A B2B business model can be, for example, that of those companies that provide web content to others, either through blog entries, tweets, web positioning work or social networks, promotional portals on the Internet.

Examples:

• Marketplace.   where some companies specify their demands for products or services and others offer them or those in which a company does not try to communicate with its end customer but with distributors, partners, importers or another type of professional buyer.
• In the traditional . An example of traditional B2B involves the automotive manufacturing industry. The components of a vehicle are generally manufactured by different companies and the car company buys them independently ”.
• Email Marketing to companies and professionals , allowing them to communicate with their end customers and prospects. If you don’t have an account yet, we invite you to create one for free and with no delivery limit.
• E-commerce. Such as the purchase of goods and services through the web via secure servers, for example.