Does your heart feel a little heavier when business jargon is thrown at you? Does the sound of “B2B” give you hot flashes? Fear no more. We at Shop Local Raleigh feel your pain and want to give you a quick rundown of these scary new words so you can take your business to its highest potential.
First things first: B2B Services. B2B stands for “business-to-business” which encompasses services and products offered between businesses. This could include payroll, insurance, parts you need from another business, website programming- anything that puts you as a business owner in direct contact with another business which provides you with something you need to keep your business going. B2B is an important local focus as relationship building and communication between local businesses keeps money circulating in our local economy, and allows for a successful business environment.
B2C is short for “business-to-consumer.” B2C marketing, communication, and services are the retailing side of your company. Getting your brand, your products, or your mission out to consumers is how you drive in profit and make an established business.
Now, there is some overlay here. Business owners can easily become consumers and vice versa. So what is the real difference then? It seems to be a matter of opinion, but overall it’s the mission behind the sale or behind the communication between the two parties. When you speak to a consumer, you are looking for them to buy your service or your product. When you speak B2B, you are looking for another party to understand what your business needs, and can supply that service.
Moving on to one of the scarier ones: SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) A topic that is thrown around heavily, and never seems to really be understood by small business owners, SEO is the language behind your website that is read by search engines like Google to match what a consumer is looking for when they type in the search bar. For example if I am looking for “Best cheeseburger in Raleigh, NC” Google is going to search the language and keywords of websites to find the one best optimized for my search. When I do search this ChowHound, WRAL, and Yelp pop up as my top three results as their SEO is ranked the highest according to this search. Five Guys Burgers and Fries is ranked #5 followed by MoJoe’s Burger Joint (which is absolutely delish, by the way) because of the endless hamburger places in the area, these are optimized the best.
As a small business owner, most of this optimization would be easier done by a professional in the field as it is a constantly evolving process that can be understood, but not mastered unless you are doing it all day, every day.
Hashtags (# <— these little guys), tweeting, instagramming, etc. will be covered in future Biz-2-Biz posts among everything else we at Shop Local Raleigh get asked quite a bit about. Let us know what your biggest confusions were when starting your business or things you are still questioning at info@shoplocalraleigh.org so we can keep our business owners informed! Thanks!
