BMT6141- BUSINESS TO BUSINESS

MARKETING

ASSESSMENT- 2

BY
GOWTHAM C
19MBA0071
1. Identify and discuss factors influencing the buying
process.
 Cultural Factors
 Social Factors
 Family
 Social Status
 Psychological Motivations
 Motivation
 Learning
 Perception
 Beliefs and Attitudes
 Personal Factors
Cultural factors:
Culture is one of the key factors that influences a consumer’s buying decisions.
These factors refer to the set of values, preferences, perceptions, and
ideologies of a particular community. At an early age, buyers learn to reco
gnize acceptable behaviour and choices when selecting products.

For example, it is our culture that teaches us that, as a buyer, we need to

make payments and honour contracts, pay on time, observe rules, and
assume responsibility when seeking information. Sometimes ‘cultural shifts’,
due to the influence of different cu ltures indicate the need to introduce
new products.

Each culture is further divided into various subcultures based on age,

geographical location, religion, gender (male/female), etc.

Social factors:
Social factors, which includes the groups to which the customer belongs,
and his or her social status, also affect purchase decisions. Human beings
are innately social. They need people to interact with, and make decisions.
Social groups, like families, can influence the buying decisions of
consumers .
Family:
Family is one of the most important buying organizations in our society and,
is thus, the most influential group. Family has a direct or indirect influence
on the behaviour and attitude of a buyer. In the traditional setting, it was
the wife in a
husband-wife model relatio nship who was responsible for making
buying decisions related to product categories such as household products,
food, and clothing. However, with more women opting for full -time
professional careers, these roles have changed. Today, it may be a man doing
the household shopping. So, it is important to have a marketing mix that
targets these consumers as well.

Social Status:
Social class or status can also influence buying decisions. The members of
a social class are one that share similar behaviour, values, and interests. Apart
from income, people in the same occupation, neighbourhood, or educational
system can belong to a shared social classis .

Motivation:
Every person has different needs. There are physiological needs, biological
needs, social needs, etc. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, human
needs are arranged in a hierarchy, from most pressing to least pressing.
These include physiological needs such as food and water, safety needs, social
needs, esteem or ego needs, and self-actualization needs.

Based on the nature of the needs, some may seem more important than
others at some point in time. Once basic physiological needs are fulfilled, a
person moves on to acquire other needs in the same order. This is when the
need becomes a motive, and urges the person to seek satisfaction by
getting it.

Learning:
With experience, a person’s behaviour can change. This is learning. According
to the learning theory, when a person is exposed to strong motivations and
positive reinforcements, their buying decisions are altered.

Perception:
Perception is how a buyer selects and interprets the information that he or
she is exposed to. A motivated person is ready to do something, but what
he does is influenced by his perception. Perception can be different for
different indi viduals. So, even when their needs are the same, the
difference in perception can make them buy different products. For
example, although you and your friend both went to buy shoes, she
picked ballerinas because she felt more comfortable in
them, while you picked wedges because you felt it looked much more
comfortable.

Beliefs and Attitudes:

A consumer has specific beliefs about various products. These are
usually descriptive thoughts of how the product is. These thoughts can be
acquired or learned over time. This, in turn, affects consumer buying
decision.

Personal Factors:
Personal characteristics such as the consumer’s age, occupation, economic
circumstances, lifestyle, and personality have great influence on the buying
decisions and behaviour.

2. Buying centre members need information in order to reduce

one or more of the three types of uncertainty. Discuss the
uncertainties and what a marketer should do to reduce
them.
Types of uncertainty:
 State uncertainty
 Effect uncertainty
 Response uncertainty
State Uncertainty
State uncertainty refers to when a business manager is unable to determine
what could happen as a result of the business environment. For example, if
you're running a business that holds outside events, you deal with state
uncertainty during the months of April and October when you really can't
be sure what the weather will be. It can also occur when you're unsure
of what laws the government might pass that could impact your
business.
Effect Uncertainty
Once you've figured out what might happen, effect uncertainty comes into pla
y. It refers to when you can't figure out how outside environmental events
might affect your business either now or in the future. If you run an
outdoor event business, effect uncertainty occurs when you know it's
going to rain but you don't know if it'll keep people away.
Response Uncertainty
Once you know what effects a change in state will have for your business,
you can then plan a response. Response uncertainty refers to your inability
to be sure of how the market will react to the actions that you tak e. For
instance, if you move your outdoor event indoors, you can't be sure that
people will want to be inside.
10 Ways to Reduce Uncertainty in Business:

1. Remember your Purpose and Vision.

2. Have a Plan.
3. Systemise Your Business.
4. Ask “What if?”
5. Focus.
6. Make your Direct Competitors Irrelevant.
7. Inspire and bring out the best in your people.
8. Be disciplined.
9. Think.
10.Admit you don’t know everything.

3. Discuss five Market-Based Pricing Strategies in b2b

markets.

Pricing a product is one of the most important aspects of your marketing

strategy. Generally, pricing strategies include the following five strategies.
 Cost-plus pricing—simply calculating your costs and adding a mark-
up
 Competitive pricing—setting a price based on what the competition
charges
 Value-based pricing—setting a price based on how much the
customer believes what you’re selling is worth
 Price skimming—setting a high price and lowering it as the
market evolves
 Penetration pricing—setting a low price to enter a competitive
market and raising it later .
Price Skimming:
Price skimming involves setting rates high during the introductory phase.
This is designed to help businesses maximize sales on new products and
services. Once the products or services are introduced, company lowers the
prices gradually. This is done eventually as competitor goods appear on
the market.

One of the benefits of price skimming is that it allows you to maximize profits
on early adopters. You then drop the prices eventually to attract more price
-sensitive consumers. Not only does price skimming help your smal l
business recoup its development costs. It also creates an illusion of quality
and exclusivity when your item is first introduced to the marketplace.

Cost-plus pricing:
Cost-plus pricing is also known as mark-up pricing. It's a pricing method
where a fixed percentage is added on top of the cost to produce one unit
of a product (unit cost) -- the resulting number is the selling price of the
product.

This pricing method looks solely at the unit cost and ignores the prices
set by competitors. For this reason, it's often not the best fit for many
businesses because it doesn't take external factors, like competitors, into
account.

Cost-plus pricing is of ten used by retail companies (e.g., clothing, grocery,

and department stores). In these cases, there is variation in the items being
sold, and different mark-up percentages can be applied to each product.
Competitive Pricing:
Competitive pricing i s the process of selecting strategic price points to best
take advantage of a product or service-based market relative to competition.
This pricing method is used more often by businesses selling similar products
since services can vary from business to business, while the attributes of a
product remain similar. This type of pricing strategy is generally used once a
price for a product or service has reached a level of equilibrium, which
occurs when a product has been on the market for a long time and there are
many substitutes for the product.

Value-Based Pricing:

Value-based pricing is a strategy of setting prices p rimarily based on a

consumer's perceived value of a product or service. Value pricing is customer
-focused
pricing, meaning companies base the ir pricing on how much the
customer believes a product is worth.

Value-based pricing is different than "cost -plus" pricing, which factors the
costs of production into the pricing calculation. Companies that offer unique
or highly valuable features or servi ces are better positioned to take
advantage of the value pricing model than companies which chiefly sell
commoditized items.

Penetration pricing:
Penetration pricing is a pricing strategy where the price of a product is initially
set low to rapidly reach a wide fraction of the market and initiate word of
mouth.[1] The strategy works on the expectation that customers will switch to
the new brand because of the lower price. Penetration pricing is most
commonly associated with marketing objectives of enlarging market share and
exploiting economies of scale or experience.

4. Identify and discuss four Promotional Tools used in b2b

markets .

Marketing is developing at an extremely rapid pace with the rise of new

technology and the tools you choose to implement and measure your
marketing efforts are becoming increasingly plentiful and powerful .

1. SEMRush (SEO):
This software powers your B2B search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts.
SEO is the process of optimising your website keyword s and content to
rank high on Google (in organic search) which is a key priority for
driving online traffic. SEMRush tracks the keywords you currently rank for,
suggests related keywords & displays your competitor’s rankings. You can
use it to do your keyword research, track your competitions keyword
strategy, run an SEO audit of your blog, look for backlinking
opportunities and more .

Additionally in 2020 SEMRush has rolled out brand new features

including a site health and site audit functio n. This enables you to see
a ranking percentage of how your technical SEO and backlinks stack up
against your top organic competitors, with tips on how to improve this .
2. HubSpot Free (CRM):
A customer relationship management platform (CRM) refers to
technologies that companies use to manage and analyse customer
interactions and data throughout the customer’s lifecycle. HubSpot is a very
proficient CRM platform. With built -in blog hosting capabilities, the
ability to create start to finish content offers & store countless contacts
this is a very powerful to ol for your B2B marketing.

HubSpot has been around since 2004 founded by two MIT graduates and
has evolved into an industry -leading software platform for inbound
marketing. Its impressive analytics, powerful free version and integration
capabilities make this one tool essential for your marketing .

Key HubSpot Free CRM features include:

 Contact management
 Company records
 Deals
 Tasks & activitie s
 Company insights
 Gmail and Outlook integratio n
 Website forms
 Ads management (Google, Facebook & LinkedIn )
 Email tracking & notification s
 Email templates
 Reporting dashboards

HubSpot Free CRM helps companies of all sizes track and nurture leads
and analyse business metrics. HubSpot CRM is suitable for any B2B
or B2C business in a variety of segments, including accounting,
marketing, sales, construction, retail, real estate and more. It also has the
option to expand the software capabilities with marketing & sales add
-ons.

3. Mailchimp (email marketing):

Email marketing is still very much relevant in 2020 for successful B2B
marketing campaigns. Email can assist in staying connected with your
customers, building your brand, learning more about customers and
generating leads. Mailchimp offers a customisable email automation service,
with analytics and collaborative working capabilities .

This year Mailchimp has rolled out a range of exciting new feature s
including new campaign benchmarking data, pre-built demographic
segments, a subject line helper and a cookie notifications bar feature for
your website .

4. Feedly (content curation):

This news aggregator tool allows RSS feeds to be pulled from
numerous publications with the option to search feeds by topics. Feedly
allows you to follow multiple social media accounts, blogs and news
sources in one manageable interface. This is extremely useful for keeping
on top of industry trends and sourcing relevant content to post on social
media to help your B2B marketing efforts. The platform also offers an
extensive list of integrations including Google Docs & WordPress.
Feedly’s free basic plan allows up to 100 sources and 3 feeds on mobile and
desktop, that’s plenty to get you started.

5. Explain FIVE factors that affect the success of a new industrial

product in the market.
The main factors which influence to new product development in market:

 Knowledge Management
 Market Orientation
 New Product Development Process
 New Product Development Speed
 New Product Development Strategies
 New Product Development Teams
 Technology
 Top Management Support
Top Management Support:

At first glance, this appears to be completely out of control of the design

team. After all, top managers make the decision as to what to support and
what not to support right?

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The support of top management is critical to
a project’s success. Without that support, budget or resources are not likely to
be granted to the project and it may not get the priority it needs within the
business as a whole. However, while the design team cannot force
management to support their projects, they can develop the political savvy
to persuade management to support the best projects.

Learning to influence managers is a critical skill for design teams. Embar king
on projects without managerial support is a recipe for failure but winning
over support is a question of leadership and communication.

Market Orientation:

Investopedia defines market orientation as follows: “Market orientation is a

company philosophy focused on discovering and meeting the needs and
desires of its customers through its product mix.”

It seems reasonable to suggest that while a design team does not have control
over company philosophy it should be in a good position to influence this.
Con ducting user research and where appropriate market research – two
fundamentals of developing high quality
user experiences; will enable the discovery of
customer/user needs and how to meet them.

Technology:

The technology used to create and deliver the product must be suitable for
the market. While it is unlikely that the design team will have the final say
in technology budgets or appropriation it is likely that they will be able to
influence the development teams in their choice of technology.
It is clear that, for example, multi -million-dollar hardware and software
requirements will make a product inaccessible to the consumer market but
may not be an insurmountable hurdle for government or corporate
markets.

Technology must be chosen with the end-users in mind.

Knowledge Management:

In many organizations today; knowledge is treated like gold dust and

guarded by its owners as they would steal treasure. Unfortunately, the
creation of knowledge silos like these makes it impossible for knowledge
to be effective.

Market research data, for example, can be incredibly useful to a design

team but only if they can access that data and it’s not kept securely in the
marketing department under lock and key. Likewise, user research data
can be highly valuable to the marketing team but once again – only if
they can access it.

Knowledge management structures will normally fall outside of the design

team’s remit. However, there is nothing preventing the design team from
advocatin g for open knowledge management structures or indeed
persuading senior management to support such structures.

New Product Development Speed:

Speed to market is a critical factor in success. If your new product

development process takes 5 years but your competitor’s takes 2 years – it
is likely that no matter how good your designs are; they will have been
eclipsed by the time they get to market.

Refining the design process to maximize speed whilst protecting the

user experience is a delicate balancing act an d it is fully within the
designer’s remit. However, the development process speed is much less
likely to be within the design team’s control and their ability to influence that
speed may be marginal at best.
New Product Development Process:

Having clear processes for design and development are essential. While
these may be tailored to fit specific circumstances – a methodology for
working that is clearly understood and agreed to by all members of the product
development team is highly likely to produce bette r results than those
created with no formal process.

The design team will, normally, have some input into these processes and
be able to negotiate modifications to processes when they fail to produce
optimal results. There is little control for the design team over the way other
teams execute these processes. Failure in execution, from other teams, is
one of the few areas where it is reasonable to say that failure was completely
outside of the design team’s control.

********************THANK YO U********************