Week 4 EOC: Business to Business vs. Consumer Marketing

In business to business marketing, the buyers who are targeted are few in number but spend much more than consumers. A business buyer may spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a single sale; losing that customer is a much bigger loss than losing a sale in the consumer market. The purchasing decision making process is much different between business customers and consumers, as well. It is common for a consumer to make a purchase with little to no research behind it; such a purchase by a business customer would be irresponsible and does not happen. When businesses make large purchases, there can be hundreds of people who weigh in on the decision, making it a very long and arduous process.  To be able to obtain and maintain large business accounts, it is important to establish close relationships and partnerships between buyer and seller. Consumer marketing is an entirely different process. In consumer marketing, there are a vast number of buyers being targeted; to be able to effectively market to them, they are targeted in groups referred to as demographics. Building relationships with the buyer is also important in consumer marketing, but they are not as intimate as the relationships built in business to business marketing. Products are often purchased based on a single ad that was viewed or a small amount of research done by the consumer; therefore, creating ads that work is in a medium that will be received by the targeted demographic is very important. The only real similarity between business to business marketing and consumer marketing is that they both require “a deep-down understanding of customer needs and customer-driven marketing strategies that create superior customer value” (Armstrong and Kotler 158).