Why Is Business-To-Business Marketing Special?

Around the time of B2B International's inception in the 1990s, a key challenge the authors faced was explaining to potential customers that their skills as business-to-business market researchers and marketers were unique. There was a frequent dismissal of the idea that business-to-business markets - and therefore the techniques used to explore these markets - were in any meaningful way distinct from consumer markets. Over the past 15 years, however, business-to-business marketing has emerged as a discipline in its own right and divergences in marketing practice have been accentuated. The authors feel it is worth reiterating the many differences between the two disciplines and, above all, pointing out the implications of these differences when it comes to implementing a business-to-business marketing strategy.