Business
What is B2B in Sales and Marketing?
As far as popular buzzwords in the sales world goes, “B2B” is not one that we hear very often. It stands for business-to-business sales and organizations, which you can learn more about here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/btob.asp. What does all of that mean, though, and why is it so important?
Well, in simple terms it is a transaction that occurs between one business and another. So, it could be a wholesaler and a retailer, which is the most common example of this phenomenon. Essentially, it is a big reason for how the supply chain operates, because without it many retailers might not be able to provide us with the goods and services that we are so accustomed to!
So – How Does this Relate to Sales?
We might not think about this often, but wholesalers do need to make themselves attractive to other businesses. Hence, the need for B2B strategies. The sales funnel in this context works similarly to a traditional one, but instead focuses on the retailer experience in interacting with a wholesale company. So, there are some changes that should be noted.
Back to Basics: Understanding B2B
These transactions occur in the supply chain more often than not, as I mentioned above. So, sometimes one company will purchase raw materials from another! What is of note is that because of how many suppliers and wholesalers out there, we need to adjust our own strategies into putting ourselves out there to get noticed!
After all, all funnels begin with the same thing: the awareness phase. If you are unfamiliar with how they work, I will go over that in the next section. However, for now just know that a B2B sales funnel works in a slightly different manner due to the larger scale.
Some of the common avenues in which B2B occurs are property management, industrial cleanup organizations, auto industry companies, and housekeeping groups. All of them require certain materials or goods in bulk, thus it is typically easier to purchase from a wholesaler.
What is a Sales Funnel?
In essence, a sales funnel is the process in which a potential customer goes through the process of finding your brand, learning about it, deciding whether they will purchase, and taking action if they do make that choice. They are a tool that we can use to track the progress of a prospective customer as they eventually make a purchase, and we land the sale.
There are three parts to it, which are the top, middle, and bottom. They are quite nice in terms of how we can use them to grow our business, be it an in-person store or an e-commerce website. Applying them to business-to-business marketing is not overly complex.
Understanding the Supply Chain Levels
So, the first level of this is the primary market. Of note is that this is the only one that remains exclusively business-to-business, so it is one to know intimately if you are in this field. Usually, they are the ones who harvest the raw materials, so it might be something like an oil or gas company or a farm.
The secondary market is almost exclusively B2B, but not entirely. So, keep that in mind as you consider your potential options as far as marketing is concerned. This level handles the manufacturing of those goods, so processing them into more usable products for other businesses to then sell.
The tertiary market is the one where traditional sales model mix with the business-to-business ones. The B2B comes into play with services especially in this category – so, someone like a plumber or electrician is considered a business, but other companies often utilize their services. Read more about that in this article if you are curious about how these markets work!
Now, if you are confused or skeptical about the relevance of a sales funnel for B2B sales strategies, I understand. It might not seem important at first glance, but there is a reason to emphasize it as you gather a marketing team. Allow me to explain.
As you consider the top of the funnel, it is critical to think about who your target audience is. In this case, that is the businesses you are looking to sell to. However, if we think about it a bit less specifically, we are just trying to find who do we want to notice and pay attention to our products or brand.
The middle of the funnel is the lead generation stage. As you look at your target audience and find your potential customers, the goal is to get their contact information so that we can reach out to them in the future. Hopefully, we can then push them into the next part.
That final section is the bottom, which is where current customers are as well as any new ones that we convert from the first two steps. Every business should be able to identify these stages and how customers interact with their brand along the way. These impressions that we make are critical in managing to convert those potentials into real sales.
Why is that? Well, if we are not familiar with how this works in our own doors, it is difficult to convince people to trust us and buy our products. So, that is part of why creating a sales funnel is important. Because it takes time and effort on the part of our teams, that is something else to consider.
However, it is definitely worth it. Once you figure out where your prospects are falling out of the funnel, you can institute efforts to prevent that from happening. Instead, you can encourage them to stay and continue their interest in your brand. There are a variety of techniques you can employ to do this, and it will largely depend on the goods or services that you provide.
All in all, it is a worthwhile endeavor to chart out your sales funnel, including if you are dealing in mostly B2B.
