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B2B Marketing Market Assessment February 2008
Key Note Publications Ltd, Feb 2008, Pages: 129
Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is emerging from under the shadow of its larger business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing cousin as businesses are increasingly recognising the importance of taking an holistic approach to how they conduct their business — not just with regard to their customers' but also in terms of how they are perceived by employees and other business stakeholders, such as partners, suppliers and shareholders.
B2B marketing has long been associated with product marketing; the product launch, the sales campaign, trade press advertising and mailshots have all served to identify what B2B marketing is about.
However, this is changing. Customer relationship management (CRM) has demonstrated the need for businesses to make the requirements of their customers central to their operations, with the same high standard of service provided at all customer `touchpoints' (customer contact points). This has led to businesses more closely scrutinising their business processes and articulating the values that govern the way in which they operate.
This process inevitably draws a picture of the `brand' — the package of values that businesses associate with themselves — and B2B marketers are strongly advocating that the brand-marketing techniques that are employed so successfully in the B2C arena are also essential to successful B2B marketing.
It is tempting to consider B2B marketing agencies as direct marketing (DM) agencies specialising in the B2B sector. However, the sector embraces an extremely diverse number of services. There are, of course, many full-service agencies working across the full spectrum of marketing channels — but there are also many specialist agencies working in individual channels, such as e-mail marketing or online advertising. Some specialise in providing marketing services for particular vertical sectors, such as construction, healthcare or IT, and others take a more holistic approach, working in brand marketing.
Marketing to businesses is more complex than marketing to consumers. There are similarities — segmentation, data analysis and data modelling are all techniques that are used to target the most likely buyers in B2B as they are in B2C — but the business-buying process is more complicated. The decision to buy is often made after a lengthy process and by a group of people — the decision-making unit (DMU) — rather than an individual. There are many hurdles to jump before the DMU is reached, with the gatekeepers and influencers having to be won over first, followed by the procurement team (whose role is becoming increasingly important to buyers).
Increasingly tight regulations have also presented difficulties for marketing to businesses. The introduction of the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) in 2004 meant that many organisations could opt out of being approached for marketing purposes, and created a need for business lists to be constantly refreshed and updated.
As a result of these conditions, the expertise held by specialist B2B marketers has been in increasing demand and this sector has grown. We estimate that the B2B marketing sector was worth £11.34bn in 2007.
One of the fastest-growing channels used by B2B marketers is e-mail marketing; volumes in this channel are already on a par with those for direct mail. Direct mail volumes have been decreasing but this could represent more focused targeting, which makes for smaller mailshots.
Research has shown that companies are spending a fifth of their online budgets on e-mail marketing, with the main use being newsletters. There are, however, obstacles here: spam continues to dog e-mail marketing and the increasingly sophisticated spam filters used by organisations to combat it can also filter out legitimate e-mail marketing messages. Nonetheless, e-mail marketing does allow B2B marketers the opportunity to build relationships and its use is set to grow faster than any other channel.
This report focuses on three important sectors: B2B marketing agencies; B2B marketing channels; and data providers. We conducted much direct research for this report among practitioners within the industry itself. Unique insight is given in a `virtual roundtable' at which some of the industry's leading figures have provided commentary on some of the most pertinent issues facing B2B marketing today.
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