Comparing Consumer to Industrial Marketing. Page 1 / 5 |
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A November visitor proposed a comparison between consumer and industrial
marketing so "ever willing to please" I took a quick stab at it. Comments are
welcome I am sure this would be a topic worth attacking with some detailed
examples.
1. Introduction
2. Numbers of
participants in the market and how many are involved in purchasing
decisions.
3. How are
purchasing decisions made?
4. Market value,
consumption and transactions.
5. Barriers,
imperfect knowledge and switching costs?
6. Viable
selling / communication / research techniques widely applied in each
sector?
7. Viable
routes to market in each sector?
8. Summary and
conclusion.
.. Feedback form.
1. Introduction
In essence the basic marketing process must be the same whatever the market
but the proposer raises a good question because
a.) various marketing techniques are better suited to one set of
circumstances where they are more widely used than in the other.
b.) Some conditions and behaviours are more prevalent and influential in one
of the two markets than the other.
I believe these two generalities start to explain why the lives of marketing
and sales staff in the two sectors can be so different that it may appear they
are in different professions.
I can almost hear you ask "what is the marketing process" well my
description is:
"the marketing process includes work a commercial entity may undertake to
select its target customers, learn and understand their needs, create offerings
that will fulfil these needs and promote, inform, deliver, compete and satisfy
their targeted customer needs within the constraints of a viable business
model."
Starting quite simply, consumer marketing is about creating and delivering
products to solve consumers needs while B2B
marketing or industrial marketing is about serving the needs of a business or
businesses within industry.
This in itself is open to misunderstanding so I will use the terms
"industrial marketing" and "consumer marketing" and drop B2B, because marketing
staff involved in B2B and consumer marketing may in some conditions be doing
the same thing.
Consider the marketing staff of a major retail chain, they are engaged in
marketing to consumers (consumer marketing or B2C), now consider the marketing staff of one of
the manufacturers whose products are sold through that retail chain, their
sales staff are physically selling to a business (B2B to the retailer) but
their marketing staff are also concerned with marketing their wares to
consumers (B2C). The retailer is their present route to market and part of
their marketing effort toward consumers.
The term "industrial marketing" is more distinctive (than B2B) to consumer
marketing, normally meaning the supply of items or services to companies in
industry. These items or services are either consumed or are used by the
companies in a production process to create products which are then sold on to
others who may be business or consumers.
What does this mean for people involved in the marketing process in these
sectors, well quite a few differences immediately spring to mind.
>> Next page: "Numbers of
participants in the market and how many are involved in purchasing
decisions."
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