Effective industrial marketing : business-to-business marketing of goods and services

Industrial (or business-to-business) marketing for many years lived in the shadow of the more publicly-visible consumer marketing, but growing awareness of the specialist techniques needed when selling to business has seen rapid development of the marketing skills required. Industrial markets have a series of key characteristics which demand special recognition if marketing is to be effectively implemented. For example, industrial marketing typically involves larger value/bigger unit purchases, more technically-complex products, higher buyer risk and longer buy times, more complex decision-making units, closer buyer-seller relationships, and professional purchasers - all of which demand special marketing expertise.