The business-to-business target shares many of the characteristics of the targeting outlined:

• Breaking down into sub-markets
• Weighting to frequency of use
• Weighting to value of customer.

Indeed, much business-to-business advertising does precisely that. It may divide the target audience down into value categories. One way is by recency of purchasing:

• Those who purchased recently
• Those who purchased some while ago
• Those who purchased a long while ago.

Messages and tactics will vary according to the category or, alternatively, by value of customer. Activities could be split by:

• larger customers
• medium-sized customers

• Smaller customers.

Weighting and differential spend are a consequence of these definitions.

Another simple approach is to target by region: by sales region, or wholesaler region, or by area weight of purchasing, via a national average:

• average sales regions

• Above average regions

• below average regions.

The key decision is whether to spend evenly, or to build up weaker regions, or to invest further in strong regions.

Here, too, media can be weighted and money spent in proportion.

At the heart of the campaign plan is the need to decide who counts most: the user, the buyer, or the decision maker? This is a critical decision. If you advertise, how can the advertising best achieve a sale? How will it work? Who best gives a return to the advertising pound spent?

One system often used in business-to-business communication is that of the ‘decision-making unit’ or DMU.

In real life, the decision is often made not by one person, but by a group of people. Overall, the advertising should get to decision makers. They count above all others. So, it is essential to examine the decision-making process in any particular market. And here again, a variety of sub-markets may emerge, each with its own decision-making structure.

Take a typical general market. It might perhaps break down into three sub-markets:

1. sole traders: one simple target group, usually smaller businesses
2. medium-sized companies with decisions by:

- heads of user departments

- the procurement division

The board of directors

3. specialised users, research-based, with decisions by:

- R & D management

The R & D staff themselves

- the procurement division

• The finance director
• The board of directors

From which three programmes may evidently be needed, each targeted, each specific. Business-to-business targeting therefore very much rests on the need to model the market, and to establish the values of business within it.

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