Ch. 7 - Business Marketing

Business-to-business electronic commerce (B-to-B) is the use of the internet to facilitate the exchange of goods, services, and information between organizations. Today, B-to-B sites look more like consumer sites with social media and community building applications. Most marketers are now using some sort of web analytics to determine which activities generate leads to then use that information to make the Web site more effective. One way that Pantene Pro V measures its Web application, Web site, or other piece of interactive technology is to evaluate its stickiness factor. Stikiness is a measure of a Web site’s effectiveness calculated by manipulating the frequency of visits by the durations of a visit by the number of pages viewed during each visits (stickiness = frequency x duration x site reach). The advantage of B-to-B internet marketing is that it allows Pantene marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of their advertisement ads by tracking their audience with statistical measures to see whether these new avenues are beneficial or used by customers. Furthermore, this allows Pantene to make their most marketing investments where there is more frequency of engagement by consumers. Not only does this strategy result in better investments but it also benefits the consumer and the Pantene Pro V market. Pantene’s customers will recognize that their voice is being heard which is very important as it does build loyalty. The chart below is an example the analytic activity that is measured through Web application.

 The primary purpose of creating these new applications is that they provide additional information about present or potential customers; increase efficiency; lower costs; increase supply range efficiency; or enhance consumer retention, loyalty and trust is being developed each year. This enables business marketers to know their audience better as relationship marketing is taking place. Relationship marketing is a strategy that entails seeking and establishing ongoing relationships with customers. Using strategies like these allows Pantene to build competitive advantage as competition has become more intense in today’s market.