Business Marketing

The Fundamentals of Business Marketing Research, notes that industrial marketing has been around since the mid-19th century, although the bulk of research on the discipline of business marketing has come about in the last 25 years.

For many years business marketing took a back seat to consumer marketing, which entailed providers of goods or services selling directly to households through mass media and retail channels. This began to change in middle to late1970s.

A variety of academic periodicals, such as the Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing and the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, now publish studies on the subject regularly, and professional conferences on business-to-business marketing are held every year.

What's more, business marketing courses are commonplace at many universities today. In fact more marketing majors begin their careers in business marketing today than in consumer marketing.

Business marketing vs. consumer marketing - Although on the surface the differences between business and consumer marketing may seem obvious, there are more subtle distinctions between the two with substantial ramifications. Its noted that business marketing generally entails shorter and more direct channels of distribution.

While consumer marketing is aimed at large demographic groups through mass media and retailers, the negotiation process between the buyer and seller is more personal in business marketing. Accordingly, most business marketers commit only a small part of their promotional budgets to advertising, and that is usually through direct mail efforts and trade journals. While that advertising is limited, it often helps business marketing set up successful sales calls.

Who is the business marketing customer? While "other businesses" might seem like the simple answer, business customers fall into four broad categories: companies that consume products or services, government agencies, institutions and resellers.

The first business marketing customer category includes original equipment manufacturers, such as automakers, who buy gauges to put in their cars, and users, which are companies that purchase products for their own consumption.

The second business marketing customer category, government agencies, is the biggest. In fact, the U.S. government is the biggest single purchaser of products and services in the country, spending more than $300 billion annually. But this category also includes state and local governments.