What is b2b marketing?

This is the first of a series of guest blog posts from Simon Lawrence, ceo of marketing agency Information Arts, on business-to-business marketing.

*********************************************

If I said to you I’d worked in B2B marketing for the past 17 years, would you understand what I do? And what does B2B marketing mean anyway? Back to basics? Blue to Black? Beggar to Billionaire? No, it actually means business-to-business. In other words you’re a business selling your products or services to other businesses in order to grow (and who knows, hopefully go from beggar to billionaire).

Yes, it may not be the sexy side of marketing especially when you look at the big consumer advertising campaigns – we couldn’t justify making an advert on an idyllic Caribbean beach like a certain personal finance company. But it is never-the-less an essential part of the business planning and growth process and an important and fast growing sector in its own right.

When I’m asked what I think the main difference is between marketing to a business and a consumer my reply is simply “businesses don’t do retail therapy!” It’s not all about how pretty your imagery is or that you’ve paid thousands of pounds for an advert in the break of Coronation Street. At the end of the day it comes down to the fact that you need to know your audience; why they spend money, how they spend money, when they spend and who ultimately makes the decision.

To put it another way business to business marketing is all about the intelligent application of strategic insight and creative thinking to generate business growth. Your customers and prospects are your company’s lifeblood so it makes sense to invest in the information that will help you develop and manage these relationships for commercial gain.

Broadly speaking, in my opinion, there are five main elements to consider when creating your marketing campaign:

– creating a single view of the customer;
– building a prospect database;
– developing customer and prospect insights;
– formulating a retention and acquisition programme, and;
– maximising your return on investment.

I’ll go into each of these in a little more detail in the next blog post in the series.

Simon is the founder and CEO of Information Arts one of the UK's leading business-to-business marketing consultancies set up in 2000. Simon has over 17 years experience within the industry and is widely regarded as a leading expert in businesses marketing to other businesses. http://www.information-arts.com/