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22. Business markets

 Companies selling business goods and services often face well-informed professional buyers skilled at evaluating competitive offerings. Advertising and Web sites can play a role, but the sales force, the price, and the seller’s reputation may play a greater one.

 The Ultimate Guide to B2B Marketing in 2022 [+ New Data]

The term business, business-to-business or industrial marketing focuses on understanding business buying centres and on how businesses purchase in different ways to consumers – further explored in Chapter 8. Business markets are now networked organizations operating in a complex environment. Nowadays the focus is on neither consumer or business markets but on recognizing that the lines between the two are blurring in four important ways:

  1. A blurring of value chains through outsourcing and other relationships that allows networks of companies and customers to operate. When Apple set up its iTunes online music store, it brought together recording companies with music and customers who wanted to download music tracks for €0.99 – a mix of consumer and business-to-business marketing for Apple.
  2. A blurring of relationships with customers, as customers are invited to participate with companies in the design and delivery processes. The decline in travel agencies as customers book directly with airlines and hotels is an example.
  3. A blurring of functions within the firm as marketing and other functions are more integrated through technology.
     
  4. A blurring of products, services and customer experience, moving from an ‘industrial’ base to a knowledge-based society. 

Pharmaceutical firms have long focused on business markets such as doctors, hospitals, clinics and insurance providers. In recent years, however, they have recognized the need to combine this approach with extensive campaigns to build consumer awareness and demand for new drugs and treatments. Rather than relying on channels to drive awareness, these companies work from the consumer side and the industrial side simultaneously to create sales in the middle.

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