B2B is an acronym for Business to Business. There are over 10 crore B2B traders in India and the number is increasing as you read this. These B2B traders want to connect with each other to form win-win partnerships so that they can benefit and grow together.
A B2B trader thus has unlimited opportunity to grow and capture market however there are a few hurdles that he faces on the road to success. These hurdles are specific to the B2B sector:
1. Different target audience
Since the target audience for a B2B trader is not the final consumer, the marketing techniques cannot be the same as those used by a retailer or a B2C trader. This means that the marketing communication strategy for a B2B trader has to be different and most traders do not know how to develop the most efficient marketing plan for them
2. Lack of budgets to develop an online presence and branding
Most traders do not have the budget to set up an online presence for their brand. In fact, they are unaware of the benefits that they can derive out of ‘branding’ initiatives.
3. Lack of skilled man power
B2B traders do not have the skilled man power to develop a team that can handle sales through direct marketing. Thus, they need an alternate sales channel that is cost effective, efficient and easily manageable.
4. Buyer decision making influenced by online search results
These days, all prospective buyers do an online search before approaching a seller. This means that if somebody wants to buy a raw material, he will look for that online, see which traders are offering it, at what price. There will also be a comparison based on quality, credibility and brand recognition of the seller. Based on this preliminary research, the potential buyer will approach a potential seller. If both agree to each other’s terms and meet each other’s requirement, a B2B transaction takes place.
But what if your business is missing from the online search results or has not online presence at all. In such a scenario, you are completely losing out on a huge set of potential buyers who are looking for the product that you are offering. A B2B trader might be aware of this but does not know how to go about in setting up an online sales platform for its business.
5. Too many products
A B2B trader usually has hundreds and thousands of SKUs and finds it difficult to maintain the online presence for those because they are so high in number and do not have ready-made software that can come their rescue.
6. Competition
There is a lot of competition based on price point and thus all traders of a particular type of product offer similar products at a similar price point. To make a mark in the buyer’s mind, a trader needs to develop his brand and most of all, create an online presence.
7. Traditional marketing does not help
What works for retailers for mass marketing – such as newspaper insertions, point-of-sale display, banner ads, etc will not work of B2B traders since the target audience is not mass but niche. Hence a specialized approach is required when planning marketing for B2B sellers.
bizporto.wordpress.com 