[1][2] It differentiates from other forms of marketing in that it recognises the long-term value of customer relationships and extends communication beyond intrusive advertising and sales promotional messages.
[3] With the growth of the Internet and mobile platforms, relationship marketing has continued to evolve as technology opens more collaborative and social communication channels such as tools for managing relationships with customers that go beyond demographics and customer service data collection.
This approach aims to transcend the post-purchase-exchange process with a customer in order to make richer contact by providing a more personalised purchase, and using the experience to create stronger ties.
Furthermore, other studies have concluded that the essence of relationship marketing is the actual maintenance of existing customers, which creates long-term interest in a product.
[5] Research studying relationship marketing suggests that companies can do this through one of the three value strategies: best price, best product or best service.
They can personalise documents by information contained in their databases, including name, address, demographics, purchase history and dozens to hundreds of other variables.
[12] With particular relevance to customer satisfaction, the relative price and quality of goods and services produced or sold through a company alongside customer service generally determine the amount of sales relative to that of competing companies.
[16] Many companies in competing markets redirect or allocate large amounts of resources towards customer retention.
[16] Reichheld and Sasser (1990) claim that a 5% improvement in customer retention can cause an increase in profitability of between 25 and 85 percent in terms of net present value depending on the industry.
Retention strategies may also include building barriers to customer switching by product bundling (combining several products or services into one package and offering them at a single price), cross-selling (selling related products to current customers), cross-promotions (giving discounts or other promotional incentives to purchasers of related products), loyalty programs (giving incentives for frequent purchases), increasing switching costs (adding termination costs such as mortgage termination fees), and integrating computer systems of multiple organizations (primarily in industrial marketing).
The theory states that trading enterprises are composed of trust and commitment and that the basis of marketing activities to establish long-term relations.
Factors affecting cooperation from both sides include communication, power, cost and benefit and opportunism behavior; but the relationship effect is mainly formed by trust and commitment.
Moreover, Copulsky and Wolf (1990) introduced terminology like 'one to one' marketing that leverages IT to target customers with specific offers.
Many relationship marketing attributes like collaboration, loyalty and trust determine internal customers' words and actions.
According to this theory, every employee, team and department in the company is simultaneously a supplier and a customer of services and products.
If implemented well, it can encourage every employee to see the process in terms of the customer's perception of value and the organization's strategic mission.
[11] They refer to Berry's work (1983), which drew attention to the need to engage with internal stakeholders such as employees to ensure that they are capable and willing to deliver the value proposition on offer.
Marketing to suppliers is aimed at ensuring a long-term conflict-free relationship in which all parties understand the others' needs and exceed their expectations.
Much like product placement in film and television, LIM was developed as a means to reach select target demographics in a non-invasive and much less garish manner than traditional advertising.
With the rising popularity of experiential and event marketing in North America and Europe and the relatively high ROI in terms of advertising dollars spent on experiential marketing compared to traditional big media advertising, industry analysts see LIM as a natural progression.
[25] LIM functions around the premise that marketing or advertising agencies aim to appeal to companies' target demographic.
Unlike traditional event marketing, LIM suggests that end-users can sample the product or service in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere.