Eggcerpts From Natalie: Business Buying Behavior

by Natalie Grbic

The first step in developing a successful business selling strategy is understanding how purchase decisions are made within the organization. Business buyers vary greatly from consumers; therefore, gaining knowledge in business buying behavior is very important. There are five essential aspects in the business buying behavior:

1. Buying Centers: this includes all the people in an organization who become involved in the purchase decisions. These roles can include initiators, influencers/evaluators, gatekeepers, deciders, purchasers, or users.

2. Evaluative Criteria: business buyers evaluate products and suppliers against quality, service, and price (in this order).

3. Buying Situations: business firms must decide whether to make something or buy it from an outside supplier. If a firm decides not to make it, the purchase will be a new buy, a modified rebuy, or a straight rebuy.

• A new buy is purchasing a product for the first time.
• A modified rebuy is where the purchaser wants some change in the original good or service.
• A straight rebuy is where the purchaser reorders the same goods or services without looking for new information or investigating other suppliers.

4. Business Ethics: many companies have codes of ethics that help guide buyers and sellers.

5. Customer Service: firms must be concerned with delivering high-quality service and measure satisfaction, loyalty, relationship quality, and other indicators of non-financial performance.

Susan

Natalie brings up excellent elements of the buying process. But how does that affect your marketing?

1. It explains the process. It doesn’t do you any good to market to someone who has a set group of vendors they are required to work with.
2. You can create marketing strategies for each type of buying situation.
3. You can analyze each buying center to determine how they like to be marketed to and act accordingly.

Remember: Research is key to complete prior to creating your marketing plan. Poor research can backfire on you, so take the time to do it right.