Traditionally, the aim of marketing is to acquire new customers for companies.
The traditional offensive aim of marketing is, of course, a very important goal
for all companies, and forms the basis for all company growth and profits.
In addition, Relationship Marketing focuses on developing long lasting and
fruitful relationships with customers, so that companies will be able to retain
loyal customers within their customer base. The rationale of Relationship Marketing
is therefore that loyal customers, making repeat purchases, will end up buying
more from the company over time. In short, Relationship Marketing is all about
minimizing customer turnover and optimizing the lifetime value of the customer.
Relationship Marketing, therefore, has a dual focus on both customer acquisition
and retention, where traditional offensive marketing strategies such as the
definition of the marketing
mix and the 4
p’s of marketing is combined with retention strategies.
Marketers practicing Relationship Management can use a variety of tactics to
retain customers in the customer base like e.g.
- Loyalty Cards
- Great customer service
- Personal contact
- Post purchase communication
- Etc.
However, the most important factor for establishing and retaining good relations
with customers is customer satisfaction. Customers need to be satisfied before
they will become loyal. Marketers can monitor customer satisfaction by using
different survey types like:
- Focus groups
- Personal interviews
- Questionnaires
- Mystery Shoppers
- Customer complaints
- Suggestion boxes
- Online surveys
- Etc.
The essence of Relationship Marketing is, as said, to establish loyal and lasting
relationships with customers, so that customers will get a positive cognitive
attitude towards the vendor, and so that customers will not as quickly shift
their business to other vendors.