What Is B2B Marketing? What Are Business-To-Business Markets?
What are business-to-business markets and what is B2B marketing? To answer these questions it is useful to consider the value chain that starts with a consumer demand and from which dozens of business products or services are required. Take the example of the simple shirts that we buy. They do not arrive in the shops by accident. There is a value chain of enormous complexity that begins with cotton or some other fibre that must then be woven into cloth, which in turn is machined into a garment, packed and distributed through various levels until finally we pick it from the shelf. This is illustrated in the diagram below. We call this the chain of derived demand since everything to the left hand of the shirt is pulled through as a result of the demand for the product. Businesses sell cotton to merchants who sell it to spinners who sell it to weavers who sell it to garment makers and so on. None of the businesses buy the products for pure indulgence. They buy them with the ultimate aim of adding value in order that they can move the products down the chain until they finally reach us, the general public.
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B2B marketing is therefore about meeting the needs of other businesses, though ultimately the demand for the products made by these businesses is likely to be driven by consumers in their homes.
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Businesses buy products with the aim of adding value in order to move the products down the chain until they finally reach the general public. |