Business-to-Business Marketing

This is an older guide that will be useful, but which has not been updated. Now books on the subject are more easily found in the catalogue of the Western Libraries by doing a keyword search on "business to business" or "B2B".

The purpose of this handout is to direct you efficiently to research related to "business-to-business" marketing. The rationale behind this handout is based on the assumptions that "business-to-business" marketing is not easily found as a subject, nor easily searched as a phrase.

The term "business-to-business" marketing is relatively new. Typically the best approach to gathering material is to look under the subject "industrial marketing". Although marketing to businesses is now assumed to encompass more than the "industrial", books and articles are still typically categorized under this old heading. For a good bibliography that will direct you to older material see: A Basic Bibliography on Industrial Marketing ( Z7164.M18A6.No.4) which was produced by the AMA in 1958. For newer material see p.140 in Dickinson's The Bibliography of Marketing Research Methods ( Z7164.M18D52.1990). For your convenience, a dozen recent books on the subject are listed below; they were located by using the subject heading "industrial marketing" in the UWO Library System catalogue.

SELECTED BOOKS

1. The Best Readings from Business Marketing Magazine ( HF 5415.1263.B48 1993)

2. Business Marketing ( HF 5415.1263.B86 1993). See p.3 for an exhibit that presents a "Simplified View of Buyers and Sellers in Business Marketing" and p.18-19 for a table outlining the differences between business and consumer marketing.

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3. Business Marketing: an Interaction and Network Perspective ( HF 5415.1263.B865 1995).

4. The Business-to-Business Direct Marketing Handbook ( HF 5415.126.L57 1989)

5. Industrial and Organizational Marketing ( HF 5415.1263.M67 1992).

6. Industrial Marketing: Analysis, Planning and Control ( HF 5415.R355 1991).

7. Industrial Networks: A New View of Reality ( HF 5415.1263.I53 1992.

8. Going to Market: Distribution Systems for Industrial Products ( HF 5415.129.C67 1989)

9. New Directions in Marketing: Business-to-Business Strategies for the 1990s ( HF 5415.1263.W55 1991)

10. Segmenting the Industrial Market ( HF 5415.B594 1983)

11. A Strategic Approach to Business Marketing ( HF 5415.S8686 1985)

12. Winning and Keeping Industrial Customers: the Dynamics of Customer Relationships ( HF 5415.J28 1985)

FINDING ARTICLES

Articles may be found by consulting the bibliographies and books listed above. In addition, one can use a variety of electronic products to scan the literature that is produced. One of the most popular and useful marketing databases is ABI/INFORM which is now accessible on the library system network. Using it one can search the core business and marketing journals back to 1971.

Although the phrase "business-to-business" does occur in articles it can be difficult to search (because "to" is a "stop" word and because one is searching for identical words). In ABI/INFORM the following tactics will yield related material:

-to search the phrase "business-to-business" try - business pre/2 business.

-for material related to marketing to businesses try - marketing w/3 business.

-many articles relating to this subject can be retrieved by using -su(industrial markets).

If you would simply like to browse magazines that are likely to be useful (although they are indexed on ABI and can be more efficiently searched by using that product) see: Industrial Marketing which in 1983 became Business Marketing which in 1994 became Advertising Age's Business Marketing. The latter is a tabloid and will be found on the shelves with the newspapers. These publications and others like the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing and Industrial Marketing Management are also available on Business Periodicals Ondisc.

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