B2B and B2C

Good morning world….

Today I am going to have a look into the difference between Business to Business marketing and Business to Consumer marketing. I will give some examples of it at work and then explain how it is relevant and put into practise with my two events!

 First of all we will start off with a basic definition of a Business to Consumer model….

‘Business that sells products or provides services to end-user consumers’

(Source http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/b2c/)

From this very simple definition we can see that this type of business is aiming to sell to ‘end user consumers’, basically you or I, if we were to go into a shop and purchase a new television for our home would be an ‘end user consumer’. The same applies if I were to buy a ticket for myself to a music festival, I would be the end user, gaining enjoyment from the service I have purchased for myself.

On the other hand we have the Business to Business marketing model…

‘Business that sells products or services to other businesses’

(Source http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/b2b/)

This is essentially the opposite of a B2C model, it is a business model that sells to other businesses. (Pretty self explanatory eugh!) Although the methods of communication are different, both B2C and B2B event marketing models should involve the same planning considerations as described by Masterman and Wood (2006):

•       Situation analysis
•       Objective setting
•       Targeting
•       Positioning and message strategies
•       Communications budget
•       Implementation
•       Measurement, evaluation and control

Now that we have some academic basis I will go on to give some practical examples of how my events differ between the B2B and B2C models.

The first obvious difference of Cisco live targeting a Business market would be the way they communicate with their audience. As I said in some of my earlier posts business and leisure are often kept separate parts of peoples lives, therefore people do not want to be concentrating on business activities whilst enjoying leisure. They often ‘Close up’ and will not be open to influence from these markets.

A example of this would be Cisco Live’s limited use of the Social network ‘Facebook’, again as I said in a previous post Facebook is the worlds most popular social networking site yet it used very sparingly by Cisco Live. This is probably due to the fact that Facebook is often used for leisure rather than work, yes its true that Facebook is an amazing platform to market certain products but it is also true that its users could be resilient to other types, most notably ones that are ‘Work’ based.

Although slightly off subject, if you are at all interested in Facebook and how its marketing works the BBC Documentary ‘Mark Zuckerberg:Inside Facebook’ gives a great insight, whilst remaining enjoyable to watch…..

On the other hand of the Facebook story we have the B2C event ‘Rallye Sunseeker’. They utilise Facebook very well and have 1,858 followers with 389 of those actively taking about the event! That’s 21% of followers actively promoting the event to their Facebook contacts, word of mouth promotion at its best…. Their increased usage of Facebook can be linked to the nature of their event, it is a leisure activity and people are therefore more likely to be influenced whilst in a ‘leisure’ state of mind.

I will not go into the details of both Rallye Sunseeker's and Cisco Live’s visible marketing again as you can just view it from my previous posts but I will explain why I think Rallye Sunseeker appear to be conducting more.

The reason why I think I can see more marketing from Rallye Sunseeker is because I have been looking for it as a member of the public seeking a leisure activity, in other words a B2C customer. Yes I have actively followed some of it but I have also just come across various pieces through my day to day activities. On the other hand a B2B event such as Cisco live would not market to members of the general public, therefore making it very hard for me to see it. They would market directly to those who they know would be interested in their products, this would include direct mail outs to past, present and potentially new clients. There would also be marketing by word of mouth within these professional circles, more an ‘Underground’ style of marketing within large business circles.

 I hope this has given you a brief insight into the differences between B2B and B2C marketing in terms of my events, I know it has assured me that the lack of visible marketing for Cicso Live was not due to any fault of my own but just due to the nature of the event and the type of business it is in.

This blog is now coming too a close and in the coming days I will be posting my final updates about my events, this will hopefully include some kind of analysis into the events websites and a some corresponding data from reliable sources.

Here are a few sources I read before writing today's post: 

http://masterful-marketing.com/marketing-b2b-vs-b2c/

Masterman, G; Wood, E (2006). Innovative Marketing Communications - Strategies for the events industry. Oxford: Elsvier Butterworth-Heinemann.

Getz, D (2010). Event Studies - Theory, research and policy for planned events. Oxford: Elsvier Butterworth-Heinemann.