In our B2B marketing guidebook Business-to-Business Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide, my co-author Charlie Stewart and I write, "The purpose of B2B marketing is to attract and retain profitable customers."

To achieve that purpose, it's critical to understand what motivates customers to buy your products and services.

The third of this short series of articles offers straightforward guidance on how to...

  • Identify what your customers value
  • Understand how value motivates B2B buying
  • Break through the price barrier using customer insights that matter
  • Use value to justify your pricing: i.e., focus on creating value

Identify the Criteria That Motivate Customers to Buy—and Keep on Buying

Customers buy Value. With a capital V. Their buying is motivated by all the ways your offering contributes to their success—i.e., how you create Value for them.

So what do customers value? Perhaps they are motivated by price or lead times. Or by product quality or service levels. Maybe they select suppliers who understand their challenges and respond with solutions to address them.

In B2B markets, Value can be divided into five factors:

  1. Response
  2. Service
  3. Time
  4. Quality
  5. Price

Each factor can be defined. Which means it can be measured. And when Value is measured in terms of its importance to customers, it can be managed, improved, and delivered in ways that will motivate customers to buy.

Value motivates buying. Its five factors are therefore buying motivators. They are the reasons customers prefer and select one supplier rather than another.

Defining the Five Factors of Value that Motivate Buying

To begin the process of describing how you create Value, it's important to keep the following definitions in mind. It also helps to think of them as expectations that customers have of your company.

1. Response

  • A focused dialogue with customers: understanding how you contribute to their success
  • Identifying and meeting customers' changing needs

2. Service

  • Accessibility: an open and reassuring organization
  • Clear information on products, services, processes, and project status

3. Time

  • Dependable lead times
  • Consistent delivery format

4. Quality

  • Consistent products, services, and processes
  • Meets the brief or specifications: achieves the customer's goal

5. Price

  • Clear
  • Structured
  • Rational
  • Competitive

Any B2B product or service can be described in terms of the Big Five. Which means that what you are really selling can be positioned and promoted according to what customers are really buying.

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The Five Factors of Value That Drive B2B Sales and Protect Margins (Article 3 of 4)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Mark Eardley

Mark Eardley advises B2B organizations on how to govern their marketing to attract and retain profitable customers. He is the author, with Charlie Stewart, of Business-to-Business Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide (Penguin Random House), which offers practical, real-world advice on how to make marketing make money.

LinkedIn: Mark Eardley