Key Takeaways

  • 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 producersresellers, 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 usersinitiatorsinfluencers, 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.
    • feature is what a product has.
    • An advantage is what the feature does.
    • benefit is what the features mean to the customer.

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