Key Takeaways
- A consumer who purchases in a B2C environment is the end user of the product or service.
- A B2B purchaser, also called an organizational or institutional purchaser, buys a product or service to sell to another company or to the ultimate consumer.
- B2B purchasers may be producers, resellers, or organizations.
- B2B buys are characterized by being methodical, complex, budgeted, high risk, analytical, and coordinated across different parts of the company.
- B2B purchases are larger than B2C purchases, include multiple buyers, involve a smaller number of customers, and are geographically concentrated.
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs describes how people are motivated based on the level of needs that are being satisfied. Understanding a customer’s motivation based on the hierarchy can provide valuable insights for selling.
- There can be several types of people involved in a B2B purchasing decision, including users, initiators, influencers, and decision makers An individual such as a buyer, purchasing manager, or materials manager might make buying decisions. Some companies use a buying center, a cross-functional team that makes buying decisions on behalf of the company.
- The traditional B2B buying process has seven steps: need recognition, defining the need, developing the specifications, searching for appropriate suppliers, evaluating proposals, making the buying decision, and post purchase evaluation.
- Emotions such as comfort, security, convenience, pleasure, and vanity are major motivations for buying decisions. Trust and fear are especially important in B2B buying.
- FAB (a.k.a. features, advantages, benefits) is the way to appeal to your customer’s emotions with factual and emotional appeals.
- A feature is what a product has.
- An advantage is what the feature does.
- A benefit is what the features mean to the customer.
