Business-to-Business Marketing Strategy

Your Course of Study

HBS faculty has tailored the program curriculum to address crucial areas that hold serious implications for marketing executives seeking to improve their business-to-business marketing efforts. By examining a range of contemporary issues, you will gain an in-depth understanding of the key elements that comprise an effective marketing strategy. Topics include:

Market Selection, Entry, and Exit

  • Evaluating the fit among firm skills, market demand, and product/technology capabilities
  • Estimating market size and demand potential
  • Developing the appropriate criteria to assess market attractiveness

Customer and Segment Management

  • Selecting the right portfolio of customers and linking customer management efforts to profits
  • Developing the optimal mix of relationship management strategies, and nurturing relationships through satisfaction and loyalty programs
  • Setting and changing prices to maximize the value extracted over customer and product life cycles
  • Building flexible and hybrid distribution strategies to minimize channel conflict and serve diverse customer segments

Channel Design and Management

  • Developing a channel map to understand the nature of forces that affect the evolution of a channel
  • Designing an appropriate customer driven channels-to-market system
  • Building and managing a channel system to gain competitive advantage

Leveraging Web 2.0 in Business Markets

  • Understanding current business-to-business e-commerce models
  • Developing effective inbound marketing techniques
  • Developing digital marketing techniques to attract more customers
  • Communicating brand messages across multichannel platforms

Strategy and Implementation

  • Formulating a marketing strategy that is able to anticipate and adapt to change
  • Applying new approaches to assess the performance of marketing investments
  • Organizing and energizing the marketing team and cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit

"The Business-to-Business Marketing Strategy program was a confidence builder. By interacting with others at similar levels of responsibility and discovering that we all think along the same lines, I realized that I have been making the right business decisions all along, making this a validating experience."
Diane Yu [VP of Marketing & Sales], U.S. HealthWorks, U.S.