Business to business marketing characterizes the commercial relationships between organizations, companies or institutions. The shorter name is B2B marketing and it differs from regular business to consumer marketing by the means of distribution, usually labeled as direct. Experts discuss the two variants in parallel since there are both similarities and distinctions between them.

Referring to consumer marketing, retailers make the access to services and products easy for the consumers. With business to business marketing, transactions are not closed without negotiations between seller and buyer.

As for similarities, business to consumer marketing and business to business marketing rely on the same mechanisms that correspond to the major principles of traditional marketing. Yet, things are a lot more complex than you may suspect beyond these apparent similarities. The following features correspond to both B2C and B2B marketing.

-They address a target market and make efforts to adjust the product or service to the consumers’ needs.
-Businesses need to advertise no matter of who they sell their products to.
-The target market should have a good idea about the value of the products or services.
-The strength and the prices of the product/service must correspond to some overall market tendencies.

While it is clear who sells something in business to business marketing, things are a bit different when it comes to defining the buyer. The so-called businesses that correspond to the other category here belong to separate classes of clients, and each has to be approached differently. There are institutions, government agencies, resellers and companies that consume products and services.

The consumers in the business categories are those that need equipment for their operational processes. Then, business to business marketing for institutions involves working with nursing homes, hospitals, churches, schools and charity organizations. The largest sector in business to business marketing refers to the transactions between private companies and government agencies. And finally, distributors, wholesalers and resellers work both with business to business market, as buyers, and with business to consumer, as sellers.

Given the fact that the business partners in the transactions are companies, huge sums of money circulate within the business-to-business marketing system. Other differences result from the promotional means, the volume of the merchandise and the pricing structure. Therefore, although there are some common grounds for B2C and B2B marketing, each approach has its separate operational mode and specificity.