B2B Marketing, Strategic Planning, STP, and Competitor Analysis

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering B2B marketing concepts, company-wide strategic planning, portfolio models (BCG and Ansoff matrices), segmentation, targeting, positioning (STP), and competitor analysis.

Business Market

A market where the buyer is an organisation or institutional actor purchasing goods and services for further processing, resale, or organisational use, defined by the buyer's purpose rather than the product itself.

Industrial Market

A business market composed of organisations that buy goods and services for further processing or for use in their own production processes.

Reseller Market

A business market composed of intermediaries, such as wholesalers and retailers, that buy goods and services to resell to other customers at a profit.

Government Market

A business market consisting of government units and public agencies that buy goods and services to deliver public services or redistribute resources.

Non-profit / Institutional Market

A business market consisting of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), schools, hospitals, or charities that buy goods and services to fulfill social, educational, or community missions.

Buying Centre

All the individuals and units within an organisation that play a role in or influence the business purchase decision-making process.

User (Buying Centre Role)

Members of the organisation who will actually consume or work with the purchased product or service.

Influencer (Buying Centre Role)

Individuals who affect the buying decision by helping define technical specifications and evaluating alternative solutions (e.g., engineering, IT, R&D).

Buyer (Buying Centre Role)

People with formal authority to select suppliers and negotiate contractual and commercial terms (e.g., procurement).

Decider (Buying Centre Role)

People who have formal or informal power to approve the final supplier selection or choice.

Gatekeeper (Buying Centre Role)

Individuals who control the flow of information and access to decision-makers within the organisation (e.g., procurement officers, IT security, receptionists).

Sponsor / Champion (Buying Centre Role)

A senior insider within an organisation who actively advocates for and drives a project forward internally.

Straight Rebuy

A routine business buying situation in which the buyer reorders an existing standard product or service with little to no change, characterized by low search effort and low decision intensity.

Modified Rebuy

A business buying situation in which the buyer wants to modify product specifications, prices, delivery terms, or suppliers.

New Task

A business buying situation in which the organisation purchases a product or service for the first time, characterized by high uncertainty, extensive information search, and high decision intensity.

Product Value Analysis (PVA)

An approach to cost reduction in which components and requirements are analyzed to see if they can be simplified, standardised, or redesigned to lower costs.

Request for Information (RFI)

A procurement document used during supplier search to explore general market capabilities and create a qualified vendor list.

Request for Proposal (RFP)

A procurement document soliciting detailed, customized proposals explaining how prospective suppliers would solve a specific complex business problem.

Request for Quotation (RFQ)

A procurement document used to request specific price quotes from suppliers for clearly defined technical and product requirements.

Derived Demand

Business demand that ultimately springs from the demand for consumer goods.

Strategic Planning

The process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organisation's goals and capabilities and its changing marketing opportunities.

Mission Statement

A statement of the organisation's purpose—what it wants to accomplish in the larger environment—which should be market-oriented, specific, motivating, and emphasize company strengths rather than just making profits.

Business Portfolio

The collection of businesses and products that make up an entire company.

Portfolio Analysis

A strategic planning tool whereby management evaluates the products and businesses that make up the company to allocate resources.

Strategic Business Unit (SBU)

A relatively autonomous unit of the company—such as a division, product line, or single brand—that has its own mission and objectives and can be planned independently from other company businesses.

BCG Growth-Share Matrix

A portfolio-planning tool that evaluates a company's SBUs based on relative market share (measuring SBU strength) and market growth rate (measuring market attractiveness).

Star (BCG Matrix)

A high-growth, high-share business or product that requires heavy investments to finance rapid growth.

Cash Cow (BCG Matrix)

A low-growth, high-share business or product that generates substantial cash with minimal need for reinvestment to maintain market share.

Question Mark (BCG Matrix)

A low-share business unit in a high-growth market that requires a lot of cash to maintain or build its market position.

Dog (BCG Matrix)

A low-growth, low-share business or product that generates only enough cash to maintain itself without promising substantial future returns.

Product/Market Expansion Grid (Ansoff Matrix)

A portfolio-planning tool for identifying company growth opportunities through market penetration, market development, product development, or diversification.

Market Penetration

Company growth achieved by increasing sales of current products to current market segments without altering the original product.

Market Development

Company growth achieved by identifying and developing new market segments (e.g., new demographic groups or geographical areas) for current company products.

Product Development

Company growth achieved by offering modified or completely new products to current market segments.

Diversification

Company growth achieved by starting up or acquiring businesses outside the company's current products and markets, either through related or unrelated ventures.

SWOT Analysis

An overall evaluation of a company's internal strengths ($S$) and weaknesses ($W$) alongside external opportunities ($O$) and threats ($T$).

Marketing Mix (The Four Ps)

The set of controllable, tactical marketing tools—product, price, place, and promotion—that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market.

Return on Marketing Investment (Marketing ROI)

The net return from a marketing investment divided by the costs of the marketing investment, measuring the profits generated by marketing activities.

Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy Steps

The strategic process of creating value for targeted customers through four linked steps: market segmentation, market targeting, differentiation, and positioning.

Market Segmentation

Dividing a broad market into smaller segments with distinct needs, characteristics, or behaviors that might require separate marketing strategies or mixes.

Segment Heterogeneity

The requirement that distinct market segments must exhibit identifiable differences between each other.

Member Homogeneity

The requirement that consumers grouped within the same market segment exhibit strong similarities in needs and behaviors.

Geographic Segmentation

Dividing a market into distinct geographical units such as nations, regions, states, counties, cities, urban/suburban/rural areas, or neighborhoods.

Demographic Segmentation

Dividing the market into segments based on variables such as age, life-cycle stage, gender, income, occupation, education, religion, ethnicity, and generation.

Psychographic Segmentation

Dividing a market into different segments based on social class, lifestyle, personality characteristics, values, opinions, and interests.

Behavioral Segmentation

Dividing a market into segments based on consumer knowledge, attitudes, uses of a product, or responses to a product.

Occasion Segmentation

Grouping buyers according to specific occasions when they get the idea to buy, actually make their purchase, or use the purchased item.

Benefit Segmentation

Grouping buyers according to the specific benefits and solutions they seek from a product.

Target Market

A set of buyers sharing common needs or characteristics that a company decides to serve.

Market Targeting

The process of evaluating each market segment's attractiveness and selecting one or more segments to enter.

Market-Targeting Strategies Continuum

The spectrum of targeting strategies ranging from targeting broadly to targeting narrowly: undifferentiated (mass) marketing, differentiated (segmented) marketing, concentrated (niche) marketing, and micromarketing.

Undifferentiated (Mass) Marketing

A market-coverage strategy in which a company decides to ignore market segment differences and appeal to the whole market with one single offer using a 'one size fits all' approach.

Differentiated (Segmented) Marketing

A market-coverage strategy in which a company targets several distinct market segments and designs separate offers for each.

Concentrated (Niche) Marketing

A market-coverage strategy in which a company goes after a large share of one or a few smaller segments or niches.

Micromarketing

Tailoring products and marketing programs to the needs and wants of specific individuals and local customer segments (including local marketing and individual marketing).

Differentiation

Differentiating the firm's market offering to create superior customer value relative to competitors.

Market Positioning

Arranging for a product to occupy a clear, distinctive, and desirable place relative to competing products in the minds of target consumers.

Points-of-Difference (PODs)

Strong, favorable, unique brand associations based on attributes or benefits that are desirable to the consumer, deliverable by the brand, and differentiate it from competitors.

Points-of-Parity (POPs)

Brand associations shared with competing brands designed either to demonstrate category credentials or to negate competitors' points-of-difference.

Competitive Advantage

An advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either through lower prices or by providing more benefits that justify higher prices.

Positioning Statement

A statement that summarizes company or brand positioning using the format: To (target segment and need) our (brand) is (concept) that (point of difference).

Competitor Analysis

The process of identifying, assessing, and selecting key competitors to attack or avoid.

Customer Value Analysis

An analysis conducted to determine what benefits target customers value and how they rate the relative value of various competitors' offers.

Blue Ocean Strategy

A strategy focused on creating uncontested market space and generating products or services for which there are no direct competitors, making competition irrelevant.

Overall Cost Leadership (Porter)

Michael Porter's competitive positioning strategy where a firm works aggressively to achieve the lowest production and distribution costs in its industry to underprice competitors and win market share.

Focus Strategy (Porter)

Michael Porter's competitive positioning strategy where a firm focuses its efforts on serving a few narrow market segments exceptionally well rather than pursuing the entire market.