Business to Business Management

There are 3 main types of organisations that can be involved within business to business marketing and management. These include:
Government Organisations-Health, Education, Policing, Transport, National Defence.
Institutional Organisations-Not-for -profit, Community-based organisations
Commercial Organisations-Distributors, Users and Retailers

There is a large range of potential customers that differ between different kinds of company, and what products they have. See below for an example of this-
Coca Cola UK-50 Million
Financial Services software – 100s – all banks, building societies, mortgage lenders.
MRI Scanner manufacturer-1 the NHS, or private hospital
This then alters the price range between the products, Coca Cola will be between £1 and £5, financial services software can be from £50,000 plus this then lead to the MRI scanner which would be £825000. This changes the way marketers will look at different products and the amount of marketing and type which is needed compared to different clients and products.

Kotler and Communcations Mix in Markets (2000)
Consumer Markets Industrial B2B Marketing
Sales Promotion Personal Selling
Advertising Sales Promotion
Personal Selling Advertising
PR PR

There are ways in which you can stimulate buying for certain products, take Coca Cola again for example you can use sales promotion for instance BOGOF or you have have a promotion which is linked to a sponsor for example Coca Cola could bring out a promotion that is linked to that sponsorship, e.g Coca Cola football league if there is a special event or final. They also use McDonalds to bring out glasses within specific periods of the year.

Whereas an MRI scanner is much harder to advertise or promote in this particular way because of the cost and rareity of the product.

There are elastic and inelastic factors affecting demand:
1. The availability of substitutes - This is probably the most important factor influencing the elasticity of a good or service. In general, the more substitutes, the more elastic the demand will be. For example of the price of Hovis brand bread went up a customer would move to a different brand.
2. Amount of income available to spend on the good - This factor affecting demand elasticity refers to the total a person can spend on a particular good or service. Thus if there is an increase in price and no change in the amount of income available to spend on the good, there will be an elastic reaction in demand; demand will be sensitive to a change in price if there is no change in income.
3. Time - The third influential factor is time. If the price of cigarettes goes up £1 per pack, a smoker with very few available substitutes will most likely continue buying his or her daily cigarettes.

Direct Purchasing
-No retailers involved
-No wholesalers or distributors involved
-OR ARE THERE?
-There can be direct face-to-face selling and purchasing
-How many high street shops sell MRI scanners?

Reciprocity
-Products not always bought for cash
-Products and services can be exchanged between the two companies
-EG A car dealership and a software supplier

Leasing
-Business customers do NOT always buy products outright particularly high-priced, high-technology products
-Too expensive
-Become obsolete too quickly

Culture

Culture is a huge part of society and helps in marketing to know how, where and why to target specific audiences it is one of the final parts in Kotler et al that are cultural factors influencing behaviour.

-People’s perceptions of what is right and wrong
-Family values
-Society’s values and attitudes
-Community learning
-Communal or collective memory

Ralph Linton (1945) suggests that :
`A culture is the configuration of learned behaviour and results of behaviour whose component elements are shared and transmitted by members of a particular society'. In other words its the way people act and the way they do things because of their beliefs.

There are 3 main components when it comes to culture, these are:
1. Beliefs, these are processes which reflect knowledge and assessment of products and services, this could be environmental issues like recycable goods.
2. Values, this is what makes us act in certain ways because of what we believe in
3. Customs, modes of behaviour that constitute culturally approved or acceptable ways of behaving in specific situations.

There are many things that can affect culture and beliefs, this can include things like language, law and politics, education, values and attitudes, technology and aesthetics. Culture can then lead to the things that we do in our ordinary family life, it affects family dining, television viewing and different customs.


Shameless on Channel 4 is a programme about a derived part of Manchester, with a dad who is always drunk or on drugs, the younger kids get taken by social services, there are scenes of drugs, drink and scandalous behaviour. This is for viewers of working class status, and would not be seen suitable for higher class people.

Status and demographics can help companies to target their products there are a range of of supermarkets that will target a specific market, for example Asda, they use the idea of the 'rollback' to make products as cheap as possible for customers however Waitrose have a different direction making sure all products are locally sourced and of great quality leading to higehr priced products.
ASDA 'RUNNER' advert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRvvFE2Y3hU
WAITROSE advert http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vxG33NfmVk

Social Class

Social class is part of the cultural factors affecting behaviour by Kotler et al, it is a huge part in marketing to specific people and helps to identify the best advertising and target to reach for the product or service.



Social class is very different now to how it was at the turn of the century where there was a definate triangle structure, and there was never any mixing between the classes. At the bottom of the pyramid were the working and lower class, this went on to the middle class and finally to the upper class. This is very different to how the class structure is in the 21st century where changes in society and lifestyle have moved it from a pyramid structure to a diamond there are now only small differences between the classes but alot more of them overall. These are poverty class, upper lower class, working class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class and then upper class.

In societies where classes exist, one's class is determined largely by:
–personal or household per capita income or wealth including the ownership of land, property.
–occupation
–education and qualifications
–family background

In the United Kingdom the class system is measured by social demographics these are:
A B C1 C2 D E
A – upper middle class
B - middle class
C1 – lower middle class
C2 – skilled working class
D – working class
E –lower class

Many people use social class to show their status in society, they will then buy products to show other people what that status is. However many people will also buy expensive products to act as though they are of higher status than they are, within the 21st century status and social class it is seen to be very important. So far in fact that people will try and 'beat' other people by the products that the buy and 'show' off, many companies use this to make better products for people to aspire to Take a car company for example, they will have low cost average cars but then they will have more up market cars, even under a different name for instance Toyota is a Japenses car company of whom have a range of different products for all social classes, they also have the Lexus car company which is seen to be more luxurious products.

Values

“Values are our ideas about what is desirable” (Wilkie)

Values are a key aspect when customers decide on what products, brands or companies to use. There are a wide range of different values that can be brought upon companies, with environmetal issues and recycling, organic produce or those which don't use animals for experimentation. These values can come from many different triggers throughout someones life, this can include family lifestyle and the way in which they were brought up, and also their family values.

Kahle's made a list of values that were seen to drive someone's lifestyle these were:

1. Self Respect
2. Excitement
3. Being Well Respected
4. Self-fulfilment
5. Sense of accomplishment
6. Warm relationship with others
7. Security
8. Fun & enjoyment
9. Sense of belonging

These are all key when reaching certain goals within your lifestyles, they help to realise what you need to reach those end states. Laddering techniques are the ways in which people will buy or use specific products to lead to some of Kahle's list of values. It means that people have goals to achieve these end states, and by reaching those they use certain products, laddering techniques enable us to identify the links between functional product attributes & desired end states. An example of this would be slim-fast diet products including milk shakes and even full meals with low calories to reach and end state of weight loss.

These laddering techniques can help marketing agencies to create a USP and marketing strategy to enable them to reach a specific target audience by way of knowing the 'end states'. There are two main different values that is key within marketing these are terminal values which are relationships with others and family, where as instrumental value is where a product is used to 'show off' an example of this would be the typical stereotype of a care being used to attract women a 'babe magnet'.

Gender Differences in Direct Mail

The way in which companies can reach out to audiences reguarding direct mail they have to think about who they are and the differences in gender.
People react to stimuli in different ways depending on whether they are male or female, in most research it is seen to be that females react better to emotional messages with a story whereas males prefer factual styles that are straight to the point.

•A re-written “factual” letter for men generated a response 85 per cent better than the original ‘female/emotional’ pack.
•When the ‘male/factual’ version was sent to women response rate was 15 percent lower

There are also language preferences between gender when looking at direct marketing, women tend to prefer conversational style writing with bold colours whereas men reacted more to factual, straight to the point language with more neutral colours to highlight the writing not the picture behind it. Examples of this can be seen below where the advert for women had lots of text and they had to work out the story whereas the one aimed at males was a bold picture with a few lines for description.

From both of these adverts we can immediately see the difference in the way advertising is used for different audiences and proves most theories correct when relating to different genders. This all links to the way people then buy products where females like to look at a range of products to find the best one possible, and they will shop around however men are more likely to find the product that stands out to them or is the most popular.