Business marketing is the practice of marketing your products or services to other companies, who in turn, resell your products or services, use your products in conjunction with their own or use your products in their business operations. In contrast, consumer marketing is marketing directed toward the consumer, or the individual end-user.

Differences between Business Marketing and Consumer Marketing

The fundamentals of both types of marketing are essentially the same, but the issues faced can differ. All marketers select target markets and base their marketing decisions, such as price, type of promotion and distribution based on those target markets.

But the nature of business purchasing is influenced by multiple decision makers, professional buyers and the potential for long term relationships. Businesses generally focus more on a product's functionality than anything else. Businesses also have the resources to purchase from international markets. This increased competition means your business marketing plan needs to appeal to a wider, and maybe foreign, audience. For example, if you print custom business cards, you should ask your business card printing company if they can print your card information in a different language on the back.

Also, business marketing focuses on logical decision making rather than emotional decision making. Many products that professional buyers purchase will be used at the office so it is harder to create any kind of emotional tie to the product. You need to make sure the purchase makes logical sense.

This logic could also mean that instead of spending lots of money with a traditional business card printing company, a business might go with an online business card printing company, because online business card printing companies can generally offer lower printing prices. It is more logical for a company to deal with an online company that can give them discounts when they know what they want, rather than paying a brick-and-mortar store to give them customer service. Try to make logical points rather than emotional ones when marketing to businesses.

Strategy Differences

Strategy in business marketing must take into account the supply and demand for a certain kind of product, the industry that you are a part of, the industry you are trying to sell to, and trends in the broader market environment. The strategy must also take into account not only your direct business clients, but your business clients' customers. There's another layer of customer to consider.

Business marketing also means you have fewer customers, but they are big businesses that require personalized marketing techniques. You might create different sets of custom business cards for each customer, tailoring the design to each customer. You may also have deeper relationships with these businesses because you will sell to them more often than you typically would in consumer marketing. Fostering good business relationships is key to longevity in business marketing.

The biggest strategy difference between the two types of marketing is touting the benefits for your business client, while also touting the benefits for your business client's customer. Instead of only thinking about the end-user, you need to convey how your product will help the business client to help their customers.