Looking at the marketing strategy of business-to-business websites from the user's demand

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Basic patterns and features of 1.B2B website

Speaking of the model of business-to-business websites, the first thought may be for the enterprise to issue supply and demand information or matchmaking information platform, in fact, this is just one of the models, in accordance with the mode of enterprise participation, the main mode of business-to-business Web site can be divided into three categories: business-to-business Web sites, third-party operators of business-to-business websites, Industry-oriented business-to-business Web site. Different types of business-to-business websites have their own characteristics and operating methods.

(1) Business-to-business Websites for large enterprises

Large enterprises in order to provide efficiency, reduce inventory, reduce procurement, sales, after-sales service and other aspects of the cost, or other reasons, the enterprise and its users or suppliers of the transaction between the completion of the Internet, to establish a business-to-business website to achieve e-commerce between enterprises. In fact, the turnover of business-to-business Web sites in large enterprises stands at the disposal of total e-commerce transactions across the enterprise.

Obviously, enterprises that can use such systems are mainly users, suppliers, partners and other departments or institutions related to business activities, such as tax, customs, etc., for many other enterprises, the need to rely on the following Third-party-operated business-to-business Web site.

(2) business-to-business Web sites operated by third parties

The major contribution of network enterprises to the traditional economy lies in the establishment of a large number of "platforms" for enterprises that do not have the ability to build e-business systems, and the business-to-business Web sites of third parties are one of various platforms, such as the Alibaba Global Trade Information Network, which provides the information release platform for both buyers and sellers and to provide users with the conditions of online communication. This kind of information platform type website has several aspects value to the enterprise, the main performance is: increases the market opportunity, compares the supply channel, the promotion project cooperation, the Enterprise brand propaganda and so on.

Increase market opportunities: enterprises through the business-to-business trading information platform to release the product supply information, reduce the cost of advertising, expanding the use of traditional media difficult to cover the market surface, help directly to promote new orders, add new customers, broaden the company's sales channels.

Compare supply channels: For a product with a large difference in price quotes, a large quantity of purchased products, or the first time a user buys a product or device that he or she does not know about, the buyer can easily understand the basic situation of a number of suppliers by understanding the information published by the vendor of the Business-to-business website, and can find out from the , at the same time the price is relatively moderate products. Using traditional methods often understanding the same number of suppliers often takes longer than the cost of a fellow cultivator.

Facilitating project cooperation: compared to the sale of products, business-to-business cooperation between enterprises may have a greater contribution, because for most businesses, the production and sales of products, usually have relatively stable sales channels, through business-to-business website to obtain orders are often met and not to be asked, Just as the project cooperation between enterprises, only occasionally encountered, with great unpredictability, the general can not have a mature information dissemination channels, business-to-business Web site to provide the cooperation information release function may be able to achieve unexpected results.

Corporate branding: For most small and medium-sized enterprises, few even have a special brand promotion budget, make full use of business-to-business information publishing function, who can deny it brought about the role of branding?

(3) Industry-oriented business-to-business web site

An industry-friendly business-to-business web site can actually be understood as a special case of a third-party-operated business-to-business Web site, which is a site that locates E-commerce within an industry, sometimes called a vertical portal or an industry portal. Compared with the Integrated business-to-business Web site, which is characterized by professionalism and usually has the background of the industry resources, easier to concentrate industry resources, attract the participation of most members of the industry ecosystem, but also easy to attract the attention of international buyers and bulk buyers, therefore, in the last period, Vertical Web sites have become a more respected development model among business-to-business e-business.

Business-to-business Web sites in different industries may have a certain difference in functionality, but they still belong to the website of information publishing platform in general. For example, the easy to create chemical network is China's chemical industry, the most complete function, the most comprehensive Internet online trading network, to provide users with an open, All-weather Sino-Foreign chemical supply and demand of the platform, users in addition to the political bulletin board on the free release of commercial information, but also open online auction and online bidding two kinds of two-way bidding mode , in addition to providing supply and demand information release, membership website links and other services, but also for members to provide input, management information and other services; China food Trade Network integrated online procurement, auction, online transactions and a series of functions, the site is charged annual membership fees.

The above analysis of the basic model and characteristics of the business-to-business Web site, it should be explained that, sometimes, the government as a user of the enterprise, the need to purchase through the website, in general, can be generally the government procurement as a general enterprise user view. However, the Government is a special user, that is, only the purchase of goods do not sell the behavior, therefore, strictly speaking, e-commerce involves enterprises and enterprises between E-commerce and business and government e-commerce between the two forms, and sometimes the business and government e-commerce alone as a model, called Business-to-government.

The main marketing strategy of 2.B2B website

Speaking of marketing strategy, the first will be linked to the traditional enterprises, in fact, the site is also a company, the establishment of various information platforms, trading platforms or other platforms, not to support the development of traditional enterprises, or just for fun, its purpose is to profit, Only in the current environment is not mature circumstances do not have the conditions of profitability, so the business-to-business Web site for its own development needs, the same to open up the market, the same need for marketing. What is the general marketing strategy for hundreds of business-to-business websites?

There are three basic models of business-to-business sites mentioned earlier, and each has its own characteristics, because the Business-to-business Web site for many enterprises have no direct business relationship, almost no impact, therefore, the following analysis of the content is generally only suitable for third-party-operated business-to-business Web sites and industry-ecological business-to-business Web sites, It is collectively referred to as the Business-to-business Web site.

According to the site to attract users, you can use the current business-to-business Web site commonly used basic strategies are divided into 5 categories, the following given a brief analysis.

(1) Strong promotion type

This type of business-to-business Web site is often backed by strong funding, a site launched to give people the feeling is mammoth, always claimed to be the first one of the latest model of the site, rely on a strong publicity offensive to open visibility, as to the degree of user recognition, the status of each site may be very different.

However, because some of the most widely promoted business-to-business websites are located in the enterprise supply and demand information platform, and even create an illusion: The Business-to-business website is the information publishing platform. The user uses this kind of website to carry on the marketing activity also mainly manifests in the publication, inquires the business information.

(2) User-bred

For the development of potential users, some sites start from the cultivation of enterprises not yet online, collect a large number of enterprise data, set up enterprise database, and wishful for the first enterprise to establish a Web page, look forward to these enterprises to become the site's real users, this preemptive step of the strategy is indeed a leading awareness, Since the establishment of the database and the reality of the enterprise has a certain time lag, may not be able to reflect the real data, and how much proportion of enterprises can really use this business-to-business Web site to provide services is still an unknown.

(3) User-Self-Service

Not only to provide users with free information platform, while providing free web space, and reduce the threshold of Internet access, so that users can quickly and easily have their own domain name (generally three-level domain name) and online space, under the guidance of this kind of thinking, there has been a user-self-service business-to-business Web site. However, from the current marketing effectiveness, particularly influential sites do not seem to be many, either the number of users, or less effective information. From the function and the appearance of the Web page, in early July 2000 launched the Enterprise Internet Engineering main site www.asp100.cn more perfect, and increased user customization function, automatically generated Web page effect is also more ideal, even better than the general corporate Web site seems malnourished gaunt face, but the current number of users are relatively small.

For Web page automatic generation systems that require a large number of users to participate, the site may not care about adding a few servers, but the user is very concerned about the quality of search information, if many of the results are incomplete or only experimental results, and no substantive content, I believe that users will lose confidence in this site. Some due to the imperfect Web page too much, users only in the theme of highlighting product names, prices, and so on, it seems that the business bulletin board rather than the corporate web page.

(4) Called Service type

If you feel that self-help network marketing is still more complex, simpler is the door to door (door to door) of the omni-directional third-party service-oriented online marketing, users do not even need to understand the domain name, Web site and other basic knowledge, you can do business through the Internet, of course, Need to rely on business-to-business websites that provide this professional service. At present this kind of website is not many, the scale is also relatively small. This model is somewhat similar to the traditional foreign trade business model: Foreign demand--contact sourcing--export agent.

Some time ago, I have studied a website which provides called service, and I appreciate this service way. But when writing this article, want to see what new development trend of the website, but do not know what reason the website has been unable to open, according to the original record of service telephone inquiries, many times to call but no one answered, unavoidably feel some surprises and regrets. It seems that the survival of the Business-to-business website is not optimistic. But similar new models continue to emerge, adding to business opportunities for small businesses that do not have access to the Internet. Although the objective conditions are still very immature, but, with the Internet and the general communication equipment, especially the wireless internet, mobile Internet, ordinary telephone to listen to e-mail, such as the popularity of a variety of Internet access, this development direction deserves attention.

(5) Spam type

If the company's e-mail has appeared in some BBS or trade information network, then it is very difficult not to be bothered by spam, including some e-commerce site temptation or almost begging to promote the message-"Join the XX Business Internet cafes, free!" "Even some websites take the initiative to add some enterprises to their own information base, and then tell users," your company has joined the XXXI network, please confirm the information is correct. It seems that free service is not so easy to sell.

Spam promotion has always been seen as a violation of Internet ethics, but there is no denying that sometimes it does have a role to play, and some of the sites that are now reputable have been used in this way in the initial promotion. However, with the rapid increase in the number of similar sites, users of a large number of site bombing will be bored, the effect of spam promotion may be worse.

The above several types of marketing methods are not isolated, business-to-business Web sites may adopt one or several combinations, a site's marketing strategy depends on the company's overall strategy, secondly, the site's resources to restrict the formulation and implementation of marketing strategy.

It's important to attract new users, and it's more important to keep old users so when the site claims that its registered users to achieve how many million at the same time, it should also be checked, how many of these users are just beta, how many users after registration has not visited their own built web pages, or updated published information? Regardless of the method to attract users, the basic points should be to create value for users, otherwise, in addition to wasting resources, there will be no actual harvest.

User demand analysis is one of the basic contents of enterprise marketing strategy. Depending on the different forms of participation among e-business users, the basic users of business-to-business websites can be divided into three categories, namely sellers, buyers and middlemen, and different types of users differ in their demand for business-to-business websites, and these differences also determine to some extent that some business-to-business websites are more suitable for buyer's needs, Other business-to-business websites may be more popular with sellers. For example, according to the information obtained from the online site of the two websites at noon August 12, 2000, Alibaba.com's buyer's information 66,126, seller's information 128,529, cooperation information 20,670, agent information 5,144 The information obtained from the Daodao.net, the total release of information 25,667, the total release of information 25,656, the total release of cooperation information 8,572. Some sites do not disclose the total number of parties to the sale, but in the case of random inquiries, most sites have more sellers than buyer information.

An in-depth analysis of these phenomena can help the Business-to-business Web site develop or adjust its own strategy, and also help enterprise users choose the Business-to-business Web sites that are more suited to their needs. This article will analyze the general characteristics of different types of users.

Reference General behavioral characteristics of business-to-business Web users

In the textbook of marketing principles, to the Enterprise User (or group purchase) and the general consumer behavior characteristics are analyzed, compared to the consumer goods market, the number of buyers of enterprises and the amount of purchase is usually large, the relationship between the two sides is relatively close, there is no elasticity of demand and impulse purchase, purchase decision-making process is more complex. In the initial stage of e-business between enterprises, it involves only the release and inquiry of supply and demand/cooperation information, communication and negotiation between buyers and sellers, as well as the advanced stage such as contract signing, payment, delivery and so on, often need to use traditional way to complete under the net. At present, we need to focus on the behavior characteristics of users on the Internet.

Business-to-business Web site is different from the basic point of the user behavior is the difference, because for the business model of E-commerce, consumers in the entire transaction is one-way, that is, only the purchase and no sales behavior, and for enterprise users, generally to set the buyer and seller in one, the enterprise not only to sell products, For the production of products to buy raw materials, equipment, spare parts, etc., therefore, in the Business-to-business Web site, a business can be both buyers and sellers, and sometimes even as middlemen. The main purpose of user login Business-to-business website is to promote the Enterprise website, release product information, look for business opportunities, find new suppliers, study the competitive situation in the industry and so on, regardless of that purpose, the common point is that there is a clear interest expectations, for a long time not to get feedback on the site, they will lose confidence. As the number of business-to-business sites is increasing, no site can fully meet the needs of all users, and users seeking the greatest possible source of information or the widest range of promotional results, often in multiple sites or to find the same information, that is, the user is not fixed. Also due to the emergence of a large number of business-to-business websites, in order to make full use of the online information resources, users may be on the new release of the Web site for testing and trial, these trial users will likely develop into long-term users.

To sum up, business-to-business Web site users of the general behavior characteristics are: trial, not fixed and interest-driven.

(2) Seller's demand behavior characteristics

From the seller's point of view, most of the company did not establish a corporate web site, or the Internet enterprises, in the online business activities in the most elementary stage, some Web page automatic generation system or self-help marketing system is usually taken into account the needs of these enterprises appear. However, the purpose of the enterprise is obviously not to build a simple Web page to amuse themselves, the use of Internet marketing means to expand the market space of the enterprise is the fundamental purpose, so the seller on the business-to-business site has greater expectations.

Because the user who publishes the supply information on the Business-to-business website is generally the enterprise (including private, individual enterprise), in order to ensure that the information they release can achieve the best results, the seller would like to have the most appropriate product classification, and hope that their information can be arranged in the most likely to be found by visitors, such as the home page, The most prominent location of related categories, or in search results can be displayed in the comparison of the previous place, just like the search engine, through the Enterprise station design optimization, the top of their site. However, because the classification and search technology of each business-to-business website is different, it is difficult for users to understand the specific situation of each website, so it is almost always passive in the information arrangement position.

(3) Buyer's demand characteristics

Although most websites supply more information than we buy, however, this superficial phenomenon does not necessarily mean that the seller is more dependent on the Business-to-business Web site than the buyer, this is because the demand side is sometimes recessive, not necessarily to publish the purchase information, but the focus and applicability of the Web site design function does have a certain impact on the differences in user needs.

For buyer users, want to have a wealth of merchandise information to increase the range of choice, so usually not in the newly opened website or information than the less expensive sites spend too much time. Similarly, the cotton team a large number of commodity information, if you can not quickly find the products they need, users will not have a lot of patience. This is because the buyer usually already has a relatively fixed supply channel and wants to find a better fit or lower cost supplier on the Web, which requires a lot of comparison, the conversion process may be longer, and the conversion costs are not expected to be too high.

(4) The demand characteristics of middlemen

The intermediary of the network has both the middleman in the commercial circulation, such as wholesalers, and information intermediaries, although they operate in different ways, but they have similar requirements to the Business-to-business website: not only the information of the buyers and sellers is large, but also the actual effect of the message is higher, At the same time hope that the site can provide a sound transaction matchmaking mechanism.

From the above analysis can be seen, the different categories of users of the site's requirements and focus is not the same, how to meet the special needs of different users, is a business-to-business web site needs serious consideration of the real problem, because the success or failure of the site is fundamentally dependent on whether to get a large number of loyal users But online user loyalty is difficult to nurture unless more benefits are available.

The previous analysis of business-to-business users of the demand behavior, for business-to-business sites, marketing strategy seems to have been very clear, nothing more than the needs of their target users, take appropriate measures to win the recognition of users, the potential customers into real customers, and gradually from the customer to obtain profits. But in fact, many websites in the marketing campaign does not necessarily be able to really from the point of view of the user needs, or, even understand the user's demand behavior may not be able to formulate a corresponding marketing strategy.

Each site has its own characteristics and unique, it is not possible to develop a suitable for various types of web sites of the common marketing Strategy template, however, in the formulation of business-to-business marketing strategy, the following areas need to pay special attention.

(1) Brand image

Like other types of websites, branding strategies are also critical to business-to-business sites. People often say that the Internet is a winner-take-all era, only first, no second, although not necessarily very precise, but it does explain the importance of brand image, which is important because the Internet is very fast dissemination of information, when users try to understand and select E-commerce sites, Through a variety of online information channels to quickly find high-profile sites. Some of the early release of the site, due to the lack of brand promotion, still unknown today, almost forgotten, and some of the newly developed business-to-business sites, although the functions and effects are more than some of the established sites to above, but for the same reason, few visitors. It seems that the theory of attention economy does have a certain significance in the field of electronic commerce.

(2) Word-of-mouth Publicity

The new Internet user experience is relatively scarce, often require expert guidance or early Internet users recommend, compared to the popular portal, Word-of-mouth publicity for business-to-business sites more effective. This kind of promotion has a variety of ways, for example, can hire experts to do evaluation of the site, successful enterprise recommendations, in all kinds of e-commerce training courses to do, as enterprises to carry out E-commerce resources or basic methods to write textbooks and so on. The above method plus the Internet-specific communication function, the effect may be very effective, for example, can be targeted to produce a set of enterprises to carry out e-commerce textbooks for users to download free of charge. The internet age of Word-of-mouth propaganda is no longer just one to one slow spread, but can quickly let a lot of people understand in a very short time.

(3) Actual effect

Nothing can explain the problem better than your own experience. Unlike the pure. COM companies that represent the new economy, companies are focused on the actual effect of surfing the web, and if a business-to-business site never brings value or potential benefits to users, it will soon be forgotten. This is for the Web site marketers put forward higher requirements: to attract users ' attention and participation is only the first step in the marketing campaign, more importantly, let users see the real effect, such as the number of business opportunities provided, how much savings in transaction costs. Of course, this with the overall strength of the site, business models and other aspects have a direct relationship, not only rely on the efforts of marketing staff can be achieved, but, if the neglect of the important characteristics of enterprises, the site's marketing activities can only be less than even futile.

Some websites appear to have many registered users, there is also a lot of business information, but careful analysis will find that a lot of information is months or even a year ago, received very few responses, like this type of users in addition to the site in the database of more than one record has no real value, At most, the site can be purchased as a bargaining chip.

(4) Potential users

Although the number of enterprises online is still relatively small, the real can achieve less e-commerce, the Internet has not revolutionized the operation of traditional enterprises, but the trend of enterprise access to the Internet is unstoppable, which is why the business-to-business model is generally optimistic about the important reasons. Of course, it is much more difficult to nurture potential users and to advertise business-to-business sites to companies that do not have access to the Internet than online companies, through a complex process: concept-impression-understanding-experimentation-surfing the web, a cycle that can sometimes be lengthy, and marketing tools that rely on traditional methods, The formulation and implementation of marketing strategy is often a difficult period.

The development of potential users is the sustainable development of the site's strategic investment, therefore, in the attention of the Internet users at the same time, do not forget the users under the network.