This course explores the strategies and techniques marketers use to win over business customers—those that operate behind the scenes of every industry, from technology to manufacturing to services. Unlike traditional Business-to-Consumer approaches, Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing is about understanding complex buyers, building trust-based relationships, and working hand-in-hand with Sales to create long-term value.

The course equips students with a real-world skill set that goes far beyond consumer marketing. In today’s globalized economy, B2B marketing is not just a niche—it’s a core competence in high demand. Companies across sectors are actively seeking graduates who understand how businesses make purchasing decisions and how to influence those decisions strategically. Many past students of this course have quickly secured internships across diverse industries and functions.

Throughout the course, you'll go on a practical and intellectually stimulating journey—from decoding business buying behavior to understanding how Marketing and Sales collaborate to drive revenue. Along the way, students will gain a realistic view of how companies operate, make decisions, and build competitive advantage.

The course will explore:

1. Understanding Business Customers
   We’ll begin by uncovering how business customers think, what drives their decisions, and who’s involved in those decisions. Students will learn how to analyze customer needs, understand their rational and value-based processes, and build lasting relationships in complex stakeholder environments.

2. Marketing and Sales: a strategic partnership
   In B2B, Marketing and Sales are not siloed—they work as one team. Students will dive into how marketers enable the Sales force to focus on the right customers, shape value propositions, and support deal closure. They will learn how Marketing contributes at each stage of the sales pipeline, from targeting to value creation and ultimately winning the business.

3. B2B Marketing tactics and tools
   Students will explore the hands-on tactics that B2B marketers use to generate leads and support Sales: content marketing, Account-Based Marketing, event and sponsorship strategies, email campaigns, and social media. Also, the course will cover how to use data to assess what works, how to measure marketing performance, and how to optimize strategies based on insight.

Finally, the course will give students a forward-looking view into how emerging technologies—especially Artificial Intelligence—are reshaping the future of B2B Marketing, and how students can stay ahead of the curve as future professionals.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

1. Analyze B2B buying behavior and decision-making processes to identify the needs, motivations, and value perceptions of business customers across various industries.

2. Apply marketing theories and strategic frameworks to design B2B marketing plans that support long-term customer relationships and align with broader business objectives.

3. Evaluate the interdependence of Marketing and Sales functions in Business-to-Business contexts and propose strategies to foster cross-functional collaboration throughout the sales pipeline.

4. Design and implement B2B lead generation and customer engagement strategies, including Account-Based Marketing, digital content, events, and social media campaigns.

5. Use marketing analytics and performance metrics to assess the effectiveness of B2B marketing efforts and recommend data-driven improvements.

6. Demonstrate an understanding of organizational buying dynamics and the role of B2B marketers in shaping business growth, innovation, and customer value creation.

7. Anticipate the impact of emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, on B2B marketing practices and reflect critically on their implications for future professional practice.

Class attendance is highly recommended as most of the topics are covered in-class with lectures, discussions, exercises, case studies; the study material is limited to instructor's slides.

Participation is demonstrated by active participation in discussions, questions, reflections, answers to professor's questions; attendance; extra activities like attending library workshops on Company and Industry research.
An 80% participation rate is mandatory.
After 6 unexcused absences, the student will be unable to participate in the final project, losing all the points assigned to the final project.
Responsible and active contribution to group projects is also mandatory. A student peer-review, to measure contribution of each team member to the final group projects might be part of the assessment of the final project assignments.
In case of an unexcused absence on the day of a graded assignment, the student will lose all the points of the graded assignment, unless absence is excused through a petition to the Dean's Office prior to the assessment day.

The Dean’s Office will grant such permission only when the absence was caused by a serious impediment, such as a documented illness, hospitalization or death in the immediate family (in which you must attend the funeral) or other situations of similar gravity. Absences due to other meaningful conflicts, such as job interviews, family celebrations, travel difficulties, student misunderstandings or personal convenience, will not be excused. Students who will be absent from a major exam must notify the Dean’s Office prior to that exam. Absences from class due to the observance of a religious holiday will normally be excused. Individual students who will have to miss class to observe a religious holiday should notify the instructor by the end of the Add/Drop period to make prior arrangements for making up any work that will be missed. 
Please note that Professors cannot excuse absences. Please address your requests to the Dean's office.

Week 1

Introduction to the course and to B2B Marketing
Opportunities and challenges in B2B Marketing 

Week 2

The role of B2B Marketing and key elements of a B2B Marketing Strategy

Understanding Business Customers: Segmentation, targeting and positioning

Week 3

 Understanding the B2B Customer: needs, motivations and behaviors  

Understanding Sales, the notion of "most important customers" and the relationship between Marketing and Sales

Week 4

First test

The Sales Pipeline and Sales Enablement by B2B Marketing part 1

Week 5        

The Sales Pipeline and Sales Enablement by B2B Marketing part 1 cont'd: the scoring models

Exercise: building a scoring model

Week 6

The Sales Pipeline and Sales enablement by B2B Marketing - part 2

"Golden rules" for best practice Sales enablement

Week 7

Review day before mid-term exam
Mid-term exam

Week 8

Data-driven Marketing in B2B
Introduction to B2B Marketing tactics

Week 9

Content Marketing & marketing collaterals

Social Media Marketing in B2B; deep dive on how to use LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram for B2B marketing

Week 10

Email Marketing and traffic generation to company website through Search Engine Optimization

Events, Sponsorships and participation in Industry Associations

Week 11

Account-based Marketing
Researching a key Account context, pain points and opportunities: class reading and discussion

Week 12

Briefing on the final exam (case study)
B2B in a global context 
Emerging digital and tech trends in B2B marketing; deep dive on Artificial Intelligence

Week 13
Q&A session on the final case study

Key take-aways from the course

Course feedback  

Week 14 

Presentations of final case study

Finals week: Feedback on the case study