Business-to-business (B2B) marketing is very different to marketing directly to the consumer. First, by definition, you are marketing to organizations rather than individuals. This means that, rather than selling to thousands of potential customers, you are selling to a relatively smaller number of potential clients.

While consumers may be dispersed over a wide geographical area, industries tend to operate in geographical clusters. You are thus likely to be selling to clients in a well-defined geographical area. Think of Silicon Valley, for example, and the way subcontractors cluster in that area. Or the way primary industries such as fishing and forestry cluster in certain areas, requiring a range of B2B support products and services.

This has a number of implications for marketing. For one, it means you won’t go looking for customers in the way that retailers do. Retailers carry out market research on many thousands of potential customers, in the hope of identifying a particular demographic that will favor their goods and services. They analyze potential buyers in terms of age, gender, profession, lifestyle preferences and so on.

A B2B marketer knows that clients are in a limited range of businesses and probably confined to a certain geographical area. Web searches, business directories and trade shows can give a clue as to who those clients are. Having identified potential buyers, the B2B marketer will then focus on starting, building and maintaining relationships. Where retailers may mount an advertising campaign, B2B marketers will look for a way to start some kind of conversation with their clients.

B2B relationships are usually closer than relationships with customers. Where relationships are effective, clients will call their suppliers in for early consultation when they’re designing a new product or designing a new range of services. They see their suppliers as business partners.

As its name suggests, business-to-business marketing is more professionally focused than consumer marketing. B2B clients will not buy on impulse. They’ll want to consider things rationally and in detail. So while you may get a consumer to buy retail goods with a single advertisement, you’ll often need several face-to-face meetings to make a B2B sale.

If you're thinking about attracting B2B clients, be wary of using advertising tactics that work in the consumer market. If you were trying to tempt consumers with a car, it probably wouldn't hurt to advertise it with a family using the car to go on a holiday. However, if you were trying to lease out vehicles to corporate fleets, the same tactic could look pretty silly.

Business buyers focus on criteria that are professional, rather than personal. That’s partly because they don’t act as individual consumers but as part of a group. Even when you’re selling to a small company, you’re likely to be selling to more than one person.

In medium-sized companies, there’s likely to be more than one person in the purchasing department. Purchasers will take advice from people who use the product or service; they’ll get specifications before they make a purchase and receive feedback after purchases have been used. Purchasers will also be working with other managers, who may formally authorize acquisitions. Some purchasing decisions will grow out of committee meetings that set broad strategic directions—by mandating cost cutting, for example.

This means that B2B marketing success depends on good business intelligence. For a start, you need to know who to send marketing material to. There’s no point sending brochures to someone who is not contributing to the decision-making process. You need to know who to call to quickly rectify any issues that might arise during negotiations or even after a sale. You need to have a good understanding of the individual personalities at work within an organization. You also need to be aware not only of their power, but also of their personal preferences.

Fortunately, this is not as difficult as it sounds, because B2B marketing is often a reasonably lengthy process and it demands close engagement with clients. If you’re pitching for a major contract, you’ll have a number of meetings before anything is finalized. You’ll be able to use the meetings to gather information and tweak the terms of your offer to suit the criteria and preferences of all the major players in the decision-making process.

Keeping close contact may be more problematic if you’re selling online. If you’re selling materials, you may know nothing about your clients until they stumble across you in a web search—web searches being an increasingly common tactic as companies use the web to quickly identify suppliers in a given field and do a price comparison.

Web commerce may undermine customer loyalty. However, it also gives you an opportunity to raise your profile with a wider range of clients. You can win regular clients by providing an electronic purchasing system that is flexible and responsive—an online equivalent of personal contact. That means doing the basics right, such as answering emails promptly, dealing with issues in a timely way and being willing to customize your product or service.

Of course, selling online is often the end result rather than the beginning of a business relationship. Nobody is likely to negotiate a major contract online but they may see electronic ordering as a quick and cost-effective way to buy, once a contract is set up. Many companies now prefer to purchase online, as this cuts out a lot of paperwork and allows them to redeploy employees to more value-adding activities.

In today’s competitive environment, great team members and a killer product just aren’t enough for a small business to prosper – great marketing is also a key ingredient in most small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) success stories.

Market your business properly, and clients will come – and stay. However, fail to properly package your enterprise, and even the most appealing product will soon lose its luster. While to some degree marketing is dictated by the nature of a business, Robert Middleton, of Action Plan Marketing, says there are certain tips to keep in mind that can give any operation a boost.

First, it is vital that any business – from the single employee operation up – develop and maintain a system of keeping in touch with both established and prospective clients. Middleton argues that following up on potential clients underpins most successful businesses, and “the solution is a keep-in-touch program.” And this needn’t be overly onerous. “A simple email newsletter is one cost-effective way you can keep your name in front of clients and contacts.”

Added to the importance of client communication is the value of referrals. Middleton says that current clients are one of the small business owner’s most valuable resources. “Referrals from satisfied clients are potentially powerful sources of new business. An associate recently informed me that by adding a simple referral generation system to his procedures, his qualified referrals went up dramatically.”

And do those businesses that have already achieved success still need marketing? Certainly, says Middleton, emphasizing that a failure to constantly innovate can be detrimental to even the most robust of operations. “You always need to test new promotional methods,” he stresses.

However, knowing the importance of marketing doesn’t count for much if a small business isn’t able to master the techniques that good marketing involves. So what steps can an organization take to make sure that marketing remains a priority? According to the website entrepreneur.com, brainstorming is one of the skills that is central to many SME marketing strategies.

This skill generally relies on being able to suspend criticism, receive others’ ideas openly and identify challenges as much as possible. It’s here that the link between marketing and other aspects of a small business emerges. By harnessing resources such as team members and existing clients, the foundation for great marketing can be laid. Despite all these ideas, however, the immediate difficulty for many small businesses may be one of money.

On a limited budget, and with low profit margins, how can you devote adequate energy and resources to ensure your marketing strategy is a success? A restricted budget isn’t necessarily an impediment to successful marketing, according to Kim Gordon, marketing coach and author of ‘Bringing Home The Business’ (Perigee Trade Paperback, 2000).

Indeed, Gordon says that effective marketing isn’t usually achieved by financial expenditure alone. Rather, you should focus more on originality and a memorable message. “Marketing doesn’t have to cost a lot to have a big impact,” says Gordon. “Thinking outside the box – from outlandish stunts to quirky grassroots marketing – can make your company stand out. The challenge lies in making your promotion memorable, consistent with your company’s image, closely linked to your product or service message and, above all, motivational.”

Despite the many difficulties your small businesses may face – such as fierce competition, budget constraints and sourcing quality team members – size can also work to its advantage.

The theory goes that by offering a specialized service to a relatively small clientele, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are able to deliver a higher level of service than their larger competitors. However, a number of small business owners undermine their own business by maintaining certain attitudes and habits which neutralize the benefits their enterprise could otherwise offer.

According to Mayumi Mendoza, from home business online magazine PowerHomeBiz.com, many potentially successful SMEs are kept from succeeding because their owners adhere to attitudes which are ultimately self-defeating. “Many small business owners make the grievous mistake of setting up roadblocks between them and their customers,” says Mendoza. “While they may offer great products, they unknowingly sabotage their businesses with poor customer service and failure to make it easy for people to deal with them.” In her analysis of the problems small business owners can face, Mendoza identifies five common pitfalls which can undermine your company’s operations.

First, says Mendoza, some SME proprietors have a tendency to think that, because they have complete control over their business, they should run it according to their goals alone. However, Mendoza warns that such a mindset can spell disaster for a small company. “This is the anti-customer thinking that should be purged from the minds of every entrepreneur,” warns Mendoza. She adds that the focus should remain on a business’ product or service, and not the personality behind it. “Customers do not patronize your business to pay homage to you and what you have produced and accomplished. Rather, they buy your product or service because it fulfills their needs.”

Next, the ability to stand your ground is vital to your business’ success, according to Mendoza, who says that being able to say ‘no’ is a vital protective mechanism. For example, she says, “if you follow your customer’s request without determining the impact to your bottom line and overall financial health of your business, you might find yourself in the throes of bankruptcy.”

Linked to this obstacle is the problem of inflexibility. Instead of seeing the opportunity for feedback and growth, Mendoza says that many entrepreneurs have a fixed vision for their enterprise – to their detriment. “These entrepreneurs see these suggestions as a nuisance at best, even interference. What they fail to realize is that these suggestions can be a golden opportunity for their businesses.

“Fail this basic business principle and their business will close faster than they can say to their customers ‘Wait!’” Just as damaging to a small business is too much emphasis on its size. While small businesses may need to take a little more precaution than larger firms on the basis of narrower profit margins, this shouldn’t be an excuse not to seek out opportunities for growth.

Risk-taking, especially for small companies, is a crucial ingredient for entrepreneurial success, says Mendoza. “You will not know if you can get financing if you don’t apply for it,” she says. “You will not know how putting up a website can contribute to your bottom line if you don’t create it.”

And, finally, any prosperous SME depends on a proactive, even aggressive, attitude. Says Mendoza: “Your attitude will spell the difference between your success and your failure.” Another piece of advice can be added to Mendoza’s perspective.

According to business coach, Leo Reilly, the ability to negotiate is also central to successful entrepreneurship. “Informed negotiators tend to bargain from a position of strength, make better deals, fewer mistakes and maintain more positive relationships,” Reilly says. “They are therefore able to negotiate more competitive deals because they know what market conditions are.”

Direct marketing is a great promotional tool to boost your sales. Find out the different methods used and how they can be effective.

Unlike general advertisers, who often aim to promote their brand over the long term, direct marketing is very much oriented towards immediate response. Direct marketers can tell you very quickly how successful (or unsuccessful) their promotion is, because they have the responses to prove it. So what is the most compelling tool that direct marketers use in order to gain that response? It’s the offer.

In general, direct marketing encourages people to respond to offers - such as, “Buy a dozen bottles of premium wine this weekend, and receive a free bottle of Australian bubbly at no extra charge.” It is the offer (not necessarily a bribe) that has the power to overcome “prospect apathy”.

However, to have such an impact, you have to cleverly target the offer to appeal to the intended audience. For example, it’s not much use offering a free trial of a newly launched lawn mower to people who live in high-rise apartments. You must design the offer in such a way that it creates interest.

Essentially, there are four fundamental elements in direct marketing:

• price,

• satisfaction,

• payment terms, and

• incentives.

One or more of these elements feature in some way in all offers. When you are trying to devise an offer, you should consider these four elements. The following are examples of offers that direct marketers have found to be the most effective over the years:

Free trial offer: In many categories this is probably the best of all offers and in direct mail it is virtually essential. The length of the trial can vary, with thirty days being the most common.

Payment offer: Offers such as “bill me later” and interest free credit are both very powerful concepts that regularly increase response substantially – which is why they are used so often.

Limited time offer: Setting a time limit often “forces” potential customers to make a decision and it adds urgency to an offer. Care needs to be taken in choosing the period, since too short a time frame can give prospects a feeling of being hassled, while too long a period leads to inaction and lack of response.

Free gift offer: People love getting something for nothing. In the US cosmetics market, “gift with purchase” had a huge impact when it was introduced in the late 1980s, but now it has become standard practice and an added cost of doing business. Free gifts can be most effective when used sparingly in short, sharp bursts.

Competition and prize draw offers: These offers give the chance of winning a prize, add excitement and can certainly motivate consumers. However, keep in mind there may be legislation you have to adhere to and it is wise to check with your legal advisor before proceeding.

Be sure to read each article with the mindset “How could this apply to our business.” Thinking of it that way will guarantee that you get value. Better yet, take notes as you read and commit to having the ideas implemented by the time the next edition arrives. Also, make copies for each team member. To really make sure something positive happens, work with your business development specialist to talk your team through the ideas and how to set a schedule for getting them implemented. We’re here to help you get started.