Warehouse Stationery: B2B Marketing Strategy for Key Target Audience

This report outlines a B2B marketing plan for Warehouse Stationery, focusing on effectively targeting operation managers. It identifies operation managers as the key target audience due to their continuous need for updated technology and resources to maintain a competitive edge. The report suggests touchpoints such as person-to-person interactions and a testimonial section on the company website to enhance customer retention and credibility. Creative briefs are designed around the themes of sustainability, efficiency, and competitive advantage, emphasizing these aspects in both offline brochures and online testimonials. The plan includes a budget for brochure distribution and aligns with the six stages of the buyer's decision-making process to ensure that prospects receive relevant information that facilitates their purchasing decisions. The chosen marketing materials and touchpoints are justified based on the common needs and challenges identified in the target group's persona, ensuring that the marketing efforts resonate with the target audience and drive business revenues.

Running head: B2B MARKETING
B2B MARKETING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Abstract
Warehouse Stationery is a B2B firm, which delivers stationary, appliances and
devices to offices and schools alike. The report takes the author of the report as a consultant
to the company, to identify the key target group and how to target them. The report finds out
that focus should be operation managers of companies, and the positioning during the
touchpoints would be sustainability, efficiency and competitive advantage.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Target audience and buyer persona........................................................................................3
Touchpoints............................................................................................................................5
Creative brief in the buyer decision making process.............................................................6
Information to be found in the decision making process...........................................................8
Justification............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
An omni channel retail aims at providing products or services to the customers of the
retail channel through various channels, mainly online and offline channels. Consulting and
suggesting marketing tactics to a B2B channel could be highly complicated, since the
business processes of the organization is usually different from that of a B2C business (Cook,
2014). The idea is to make sure that the first thing which the consultant does is identifying the
buyer persona of the target group of the business. This is to ensure that the rest of the plan
and research is appropriate and aligns with the needs and wants of the business.
The purpose of this report is to come up with a proper marketing plan for a B2B
business called Warehouse Stationary. This company is devoted towards providing
appliances, stationeries, technologies and devices to offices, schools and even general
consumers for the purpose of their operations. Although it is mainly a B2B business, the core
deliverables of the company is not restricted to services, and rather revolves around products.
The discussion in the report will include identifying the target audience, suggesting
touchpoints for the organization, material to be given away during the touchpoints, and
justification for the same.
Discussion
Target audience and buyer persona
From what is learnt from the official website of the organization, the company mainly
deals with schools and offices, more than it does with regular consumers (Warehouse
Stationery, 2019). This is what makes them a business to business organization. Hence, the
company has to mainly deal with the principals of the schools and the operation managers of
the offices. Therefore, the target group of this company are operations managers and
principals. Here, it should be noted that school principals are not likely to regularly purchase

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from this organization, since the main reason why schools purchase stationery and
technology is for the laboratories in the schools, which hardly need anything else once the
purpose of setting up the laboratory is complete (Wear, 2016). However, technological needs
in offices are ever changing, with managers wanting to stay up to date and have a competitive
advantage in their market by keeping their technology and efficiency at the workplace
regarding the technological operations crisp. This is not required by school principals, since
staying competitive in the market is not a part of their purpose. Therefore, it can be said that
operation managers are the key target audiences for the organization which the company
should focus on for the purpose of maximizing business revenues on investment. With that
being said, the rest of the report will be done, centralizing operation managers as the target
group.
Having identified the key target group, it is also important to identify the buyer
persona of the group in order to target them with the touchpoints of the organization.
Operation managers are of two types: the ones who operate the big businesses, and the ones
who operate the small businesses. Both of these characteristics have to be considered while
framing the buyer persona of this group.
Target group belonging to big businesses: These managers are highly efficient and
experienced in the business which they operate. They are dedicated and mostly innovative,
looking for ways in which the operational aspects of the organization could be improved
(Bromiley & Rau, 2016). Belonging to big businesses, they always have to keep an eye on
what tactics in operations are the competitors of the organizations adopting (Bosworth, 2016).
These managers belong mostly in the age group of 35-50 years, and also have a knack of
keeping interest in the operational trends in the market, and reach out to journals and the
internet for the information which they need regarding the same Slack & Brandon-Jones,

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2018). System design, communication and sustainability are the main challenges in their job
roles (Ketering-Online, 2019).
Target group belonging to small businesses: These managers too are highly equipped with
knowledge and are constantly looking forward to how the operations of their organization can
be improved with maximum efficiency, such that the business can grow from small to big in
quick time (Raymond, 2015). No matter how big or small a business could be, it always has
competitors to beat. Therefore, these managers too are constantly looking forward to make
sure that the technology and resources existing in the operational aspect of the organization
gives them some advantage over the competitors. These managers mainly belong in the age
group of 28-40 years. They mainly reach out to the internet for the information which they
need regarding their queries. Since these are small businesses, with low medium barriers to
communication, the main things which these managers find the most challenging are system
design and sustainability.
Findings
From the description above, it can be deducted that the two categories of operation
managers have the following things in common:
 They both belong in the age group of 35-40 years.
 Reach out to the internet for information.
 System requirements and sustainability in the operations are their key challenges.
 Both look for maximizing efficiency in the operations of the organization.
 Both look to have a competitive advantage in the market in terms of operational
efficiency.

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Touchpoints
The touchpoints which are highly recommended are person to person interaction,
between the company and the clients of the company, and a testimonial section in the website
of the organization, where a key manager of the company himself talks about how
Warehouse Stationery has been able to make sustainable operational practices and ensure
sustainability in organizational operations, with the products which the company has sold to
those offices.
This is because firstly, according to Ruesch et al. (2017), person to person interaction
is a great way to improve customer retention, and persuasion as well, since a one on one
interaction with the customers build up the possibilities of the customer actually paying much
more attention to detail about the information which is being conveyed by the representative,
than the attention which the customer pays while bumping into ads randomly.
The online touchpoint is chosen is because of the credibility factor. Ethos, according
to Aristotle’s model of communication is the credibility factor which enhances the
effectiveness of the communication process (Dissanayake, 2018). A part of this is expertise
which makes ethos strong. Hence, with the expertise of the influential manager of the
organization, the credibility of the communicator is enhanced, thereby making the process
much more effective in terms of persuasion.
Creative brief in the buyer decision making process
There will two creative briefs for the organization to reach out to the clients, and both
of these will be developed solely based on the findings from the buyer persona. The first one
would be a person to person offline creative brief. This will be in use when a representative
from the organization would visit the client. It would be in the form of a brochure, which
would outline the key products of the company which would be of interest especially to the

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operation managers, and outline their benefits. The emphasis in the design of the brochure
must be on the words, “sustainability” and “competitive advantage”. Hence, the focus
statement as the heading of the brochure, just beneath the company logo, could be, “We sell
products; we give away sustainability and competitive advantage.” Apart from that, every
product in the brochure must have their description linking to sustainability, efficiency and
competitive advantage.
Regarding the online creative, nothing much needs to be done since it would be a
testimony from one of the key managers of the company. However, it cannot appear on the
homepage of the company’s website, since that might prove to be a pain touchpoint. There
could be a banner on top of the webpage, titled, “We sell to provide sustainability and
competitive advantage in operations and learning. Learn more from the XYZ manager
himself.” This banner would link the viewer to the testimonial of the manager of the
organization.
Budget
Since the online ad will be placed on the company’s own website, and the testimonial
will be given by one of the company’s own managers, the expenditure on this creative is
negligible. However, following is the budget requirement must be specified and adhered to.
The company has eight stores, each of which must give away fifty brochures to the customers
over there, everyday. That makes for 12,000 copies. For person to person appointments, the
company should not spend on more than hundred copies, since a hundred appointments take
about three months, which would be the timeframe of judging the effectiveness of this
marketing tactic. Since hundred is a negligible amount compared to 12,000, the total number
of estimated copies would be 12000. According to Lucidpress (2019), one of the leading
press companies, they charge $500 for a total of 500 copies bi-fold A4 brochures. That makes

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it a dollar per brochure. Hence, the total budget required would be $12,000 for this particular
creative.
Information to be found in the decision making process
While the prospect is researching to serve the purpose of his needs, it is important to
specify him with the key information which would facilitate the likes of the prospect buying
from the entire decision making process. To ensure that, it is important to outline the six
stages of buyer’s decision making process in a B2B. According to Grewal et al (2015), these
stages are as follows:
 Awareness of the problem.
 Commitment to change, where the business acknowledges the need to do something
about the problem.
 Considering options which can solve the problem.
 Commitment to the solution, where the business decides on the best solution after
extensive research.
 Decision making with the authority or management regarding the solution.
 Finalizing the selection of the item chosen.
The information which would be let out to the prospect, would be the creative brief which
has been designed in the previous section. The information would be about how sustainability
and competitive advantage are the deliverables of the organizations to the businesses which it
caters to, along with the products and technologies. As discussed earlier, the brochures during
the one on one touchpoints would clearly outline the main areas of the products as being
sustainable, efficient, and competitively advantageous. The testimonial in the online
touchpoint would outline these same aspects, informing further about how the deliverables of
the organization has been highly beneficial to the current clients of the organization. This

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would be helpful to the organization in persuading the prospects by making them consider the
deliverables as an option, consider the option as one of the best, decide on grounds of having
a sustainable and efficient technology in the workplace, and subsequently result in the
purchase.
Justification
The material of information has been chosen based on the findings from the target
group identification and identifying the group’s persona. The keywords which the groups had
in common were “seeking”, “sustainability”, “efficiency” and “competitive advantage”. Both
the groups have been found to reach out to the internet for solutions, and therefore a specific
creative has been designed for the company’s website, having those keywords.
The offline information would aim at taking place during the first stage of the buyer’s
decision making process itself, to aim at making them realize that there exists a problem in
their operations which could be solved by the company’s deliverables. The online
information would take place in the third stage, when managers would be researching for a
solution, and would bump into the organization as a result of matching keywords.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that Warehouse Stationery has to
come up with two forms of creative briefs, in online and offline. Both of these have to be
centered around sustainability, efficiency and competitive advantage which the deliverables
of the organization provide as a compliment to its products. This is because the managers of
these organizations have been found to be looking for these deliverables. While the online
brief would take place at the third stage of the buyer’s decision making process, the offline
one would take place right at the start of the decision making process.

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References
About Us | Warehouse Stationery, NZ. (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.warehousestationery.co.nz/content/about-us.html
Bosworth, K. A. (2016). The manager is a politician. In Local Government Management:
Current Issues and Best Practices(pp. 17-23). Routledge.
Bromiley, P., & Rau, D. (2016). Operations management and the resource based view:
Another view. Journal of Operations Management, 41, 95-106.
Cook, G. (2014). Customer experience in the omni-channel world and the challenges and
opportunities this presents. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing
Practice, 15(4), 262-266.
Dissanayake, W. (2018). Language and communication. World Englishes, 37(3), 461-463.
Grewal, R., Lilien, G. L., Bharadwaj, S., Jindal, P., Kayande, U., Lusch, R. F., ... & Spekman,
R. (2015). Business-to-business buying: Challenges and opportunities. Customer
needs and Solutions, 2(3), 193-208.
Lucidpress. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.lucidpress.com/
Online, K. (2019). What are the 5 Current Challenges for Operations Management?.
Retrieved from https://online.kettering.edu/news/2016/10/18/what-are-5-current-
challenges-operations-management
Raymond, L. (2015). Organizational characteristics and MIS success in the context of small
business. MIS quarterly, 37-52.
Ruesch, J., Bateson, G., Pinsker, E. C., & Combs, G. (2017). Communication: The social
matrix of psychiatry. Routledge.

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Slack, N., & Brandon-Jones, A. (2018). Operations and process management: principles and
practice for strategic impact. Pearson UK.
WEAR, E. S. (2016). School Council.