The concept of business-to-business services can seem baffling to some. If your aim is to sell to retail customers of your product, why would you spend money on selling your product to companies? Here are some reasons why B2B services are important:
1. Company as a Customer
Not every product that is manufactured goes straight from the factory to the retail store. In fact, very few products do. For most products to reach the retail store, first the raw material is moved to a processing factory. The processed material is sent to yet another factory, and then yet another until the finished product is made. After that comes the packaging and transportation process. All these steps require the help of other companies that become your customers. B2B marketing specializes in selling your product to such companies.
2. A Different Approach to Sales
Selling to a company is a vastly different matter from selling to a single customer. Consumers tend to buy products based on emotion, while companies are much more rational about their buying choices. The marketing effort required to cater to a company is different from how you would market the product to a regular consumer.
3. Bulk Sale Logistics Process
Selling to a company involves selling several hundreds or thousands of units of your product at a time. Such a sales process requires a separate approach to inventory management and logistics and needs to be catered to in a new manner.
4. Professional Relationship
Finally, if you want to sell your product to a company, you will need to evolve a different kind of relationship than you would with a single customer. Such a relationship is based far more on mutual profit than trying to establish an emotional connection between the two parties before getting down to the actual business.
