Developing Effective Relationship-Building Strategies in Marketing

The importance of relationship marketing in today's business environment cannot be overstated. With increasing competition, companies are shifting from transactional models to more customer-centric approaches. This essay outlines key strategies for effective relationship marketing, including personalized communication, leveraging technology for CRM, understanding sociocultural factors, and maintaining commitment and trust with stakeholders. It further discusses the evaluation of these strategies through feedback analysis and adapting messages to target audiences effectively. The insights drawn from various scholarly references highlight how businesses can foster stronger customer relationships, leading to improved loyalty and business growth.

Relationship Marketing in a global context.
Student Name:
Email ID

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Marketing...................................................................................................................................2
Transactional and Relationship Marketing................................................................................2
Five stages of relationship marketing........................................................................................3
Trust theory of Relationship Marketing.....................................................................................4
International Marketing..............................................................................................................5
Strategies of International Marketing.........................................................................................6
Social culture aspects of international marketing......................................................................6
International marketing communication....................................................................................7
Marketing communications plans to build relationships...........................................................7
Formal communication plan....................................................................................................10

Introduction
Relationship marketing can be defined as the facet of customer relationship management
(CRM) that aims at loyalty of the customers and engaging customers for a long period instead
of short period such as gaining new customers and individual sales. The main objective of
relationship marketing is to make hard core customers for their brand and they want to create
an emotional connection with the customer which can ultimately lead them towards growth
of the business (Berry, 1995). As the new era of marketing consist of rapid changes in the
needs of customers and high dependency of customers on the market products, the
relationship management plays very important role to cover these requirements of the
customers. According to porter, (2008) to increase the corporate competitive advantage in
any field, maintaining the good relationship with the customers is very significant. This
report aims at critically analysing the development of relationship marketing with in an
international context using key theories and framework.
Marketing
Marketing can be explained as the promoting and selling goods and services which also
include market research and advertising. According to Kotler and Armstrong (2010),
marketing is the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong
customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return. According to
American Marketing Association (2004) Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and
processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value
for customers, clients, partners, and society at large (Armstrong, Kotler, Harker & Brennan,
2015).
Transactional and Relationship Marketing
Berry in (1983) claims that relationship management focuses on attracting customers and
maintaining the relationship with the customers. According to Buttle (1996), the transactional
marketing can be defined as the marketing which focuses on getting one over without any
consent of the consumer and he also establish the new relationship marketing paradigm. From
the point of view of Palmer (1996) relationship marketing is being used for traditional
transactional strategies as a smokescreen. Doyle (1995) argued that the goal of the corporates
is to maintain good relationship with customers that will further increase the growth and

profits. Distinguish between the relationship marketing and transactional marketing on the
basis of customer retention and gaining new customers well defined by the write Payne in
1994.
Five stages of relationship marketing
There are five stages of relationship marketing as shown in the above diagram. These stages
help to build a good and long-term relationship with the customers. It can be explained as
follows:
Share: Under this stage the seller have to share the information about its brand to promote the
products. The sellers make sure that the right information is to be exchanged with the
customers (Bush, 2014).
Attract: This stage includes the strategies to attract the customers. Under this stage sellers
persuade and attract the customers by providing them benefits of purchase.

Convert: When the customers are walking out of your store or logging out from the shopping
cart of your website, the seller should be ready for giving the outbound support to the
customers. To have an excellent return on investment, the seller should find the conversion
issues and fix them with automated messages (Bush, 2014).
Retain: It’s about retaining the customers and maintain the emotional connection with the
customers to make them hard core customer of your brand.
Grow: The last stage of relationship marketing involves the building relationship with the
customers. This stage implies the growing relationship between customer and the seller.
Trust theory of Relationship Marketing
The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing involves two fundamental factors
which are trust and commitment. These two factors are very important to build any kind of
relationship successfully. The relationship marketing further involves the bonding with the
customers by satisfying their needs and requirements and by keeping commitments instead of
customer acquisition. Consequently the mutual loyalty of the customers and the sellers lead
towards best relationship with the customers (Mack, 2018).
Trust: Trust between customer and seller can be explained as the feeling which makes them
confident that the other party would not do anything harmful and hazardous
Trust
Theory
Trust
Commitment
Effect Customer
Loyalty

Commitment: It can be explained as a desire to develop and maintain the long term
relationship with the customers through pledge and sacrifices. Three factors; Trust, Loyalty,
and Commitment are very important to satisfy the customers properly (Kumar, 2010).
Effect: The consequences of a relationship which has commitment and trust are likely to fulfil
the needs of both the parties. If the seller is providing the good quality products and services
and makes the customer feel valuable then he will surely receive the loyalty of the customers.
The loyalty of the customers is very valuable for the businesses as the seller do not have to
waste the resources to gain the new customers.
Customer Loyalty: Loyalty is a very important tool to maintain any relationship. It is quite
unimaginable to think about maintaining relationship without being loyal. In other words
loyalty implies the only single way to establish good relationship between the buyers and the
sellers. Customer loyalty is a key to success for the business organizations.
International Marketing
International marketing can be defined as the global market done on international level. It’s
about marketing products across the boundaries of domestic countries. It helps in creating
relationship with overseas markets which further helps in easing the exchange of products
and services internationally. Global organizations are required to keep any eye on macro and
micro environment by using five forces of Porter which helps in analysing the competition
and establishing business strategies this involves five elements which are as follows:

Five forces of Porter: (1) competition in the industry (2) Potential of New Entrants into the
Industry (3) Power of suppliers (4) Power of customers (5) Threat of Substitute Products
Strategies of International Marketing
These are the marketing entry strategies which help in maintaining stability between
adaptation and strategy. There are four strategies to enter into the foreign market such as
global strategy, transnational strategy, home replication strategy and multi domestic strategy
which can be explained as follows:
 Global Strategy: This strategy can be explained as the process of expanding the
market to compete with the international markets (Wisdomjobs.com, 2018).
 Transnational Strategy: This involves the business structure under which the activities
of international trade takes place through the cooperation and interdependence of its
head office, operational divisions, and subsidiaries located internationally or retail
outlets.
 Home replication strategy: This strategy is the international replication of home
country which is based on the scale of production and power of brand. The product
development functions are centralized by the home country (Doole & Lowe, 2008).
 Multi domestic Strategy: This strategy helps the companies in achieving maximum
local responsiveness. This includes customized product offerings and marketing
strategy to contest different national conditions.
Social culture aspects of international marketing
High and low context culture
Both the societies and culture are different from each other on the basis of many aspects.
There are implications of differences between cultures of high and low context for several
facets of their cultural elements. An instance is the use of language. From the point of view of
Global Strategy
Transnational Strategy
Home replication strategy
Multidomestic Strategy

Chee and Harris language is the one main factor which differentiates the different countries.
It does not only include the written and oral communication but also there is a difference of
symbolic languages such as ‘silent language’ between the countries. For example the sign of
thumb means ‘wishing luck’ in India but in many other countries people get offended by this
sign (Kozenkow, 2016).
Culture Sensitivity
The culture of every country is important for all the products and services and therefore to
marketing plans. There are some products which are sensitive to culture as compare to others.
Generally the attitude toward food can differentiates the cultures and subcultures such as food
usage, consumption and preparation. For instance, thought of drinking coffee is differ in UK
and Italy. Some of the products are restricted in many countries because of the social and
religious reasons in some culture (Kozenkow, 2016). Generally the consumer products are
more sensitive to culture as compare to business to business products. In many cases there are
also some rules for business to business markets. There are rules regarding social and
business etiquettes that business producers need to follow at the time of business operations.
International marketing communication
International communication can be explained as the coordination and integration of all the
tools of marketing communication for example one way communication such as advertising,
sales promotion, public relations ad two ways communications like personal selling, direct
marketing and after sale service. Likewise the most sustainable form of communication is
advertising which setup the most significant part of the communication mix in the industry of
consumer goods. Integrated marketing communication is the combination of these tools of
marketing communication. From the point of view of Duncan (2002) international marketing
communication is very important as it establishes and fosters the relationship of profitable
stakeholders by monitoring and influencing all messages sent to them and increasing the
dialogue with them. For an effective advertising, the marketer must understand the objective
of the message and how to grab the attention of the audience.
Marketing communications plans to build relationships
It is very important for every business man to make the communication plans to build the
successful relationship with the investors, stakeholder, customers and manufacturers as they

are the key to the success for almost every business organization. The businesses which are
the most successful, do not just communicate to improvise their sales. In today’s era it is very
necessary to make your company indispensable as it is the key of success of marketing. It is
the most amazing way to enhance the value of the business, brand and position to compete
with the competitors. The relationship building strategies which will help the business
organizations to transform and make their brand valuable are as follows:-
Tailoring your communications
A business man should keep on tailoring their communications to have the great value of
their business. Most of the stakeholders, investors and customers gets attract on the basis of
relationship a business man have with his investors and customers. Therefore a business man
must identify the main reason of their attraction and keep them engaging by tailoring his
communication. For instance, influencers might not get attracted by the weekly maintenance
and update of equipment (Gordon, 2004). However some of the providers desperately want
that kind of information so that they can serve better to the organization.
Frequent Communication
It is very much important for an organization to have frequent communication with their
customers and investors. The business man must know when to communicate with the
customers and how many times they should reach out to their customers. They must focus on
the communication part with the customers as through communication, business man get to
know about the demand of their products and also they can get the feedback regarding their
services and products (Gordon, 2004). The communication way can be of any type either one
way or two way. The messages should not always be related with the promotion. The
business man should also send helpful messages to the customers regarding the collection,
discounts and benefits. It is necessary for a business organization to keep communicating
with its customers throughout the whole sales cycle.
Rewards
The business man should keep on offering rewards to his/her customers. The loyalty of the
customers and the programs regarding rewards are the main elements of success for the
organization. Graduated rewards can be offered by the most effective programs, therefore

more the customers spend, more they earn. This will reward your best and most profitable
customers and also decrease the number switchers which get switched to another brand for
the low prices. Whensoever get a chance, a business man should offer the rewards to the
customers to remind them the products and services of the organization (Gordon, 2004).
Make two-way communication
When it is the matter of building customer relations, two way communications is the best. As
it involves listening and understanding both at the same time which is very necessary for
building good relationship with the customers. The business organizations should use each
and every tool to make the best interaction. Two-way communication helps to get the
feedback from the customers at the time of providing services. Customers feel related with
the company when there is a two-way communication between the company and the
customer
Improvise the customer service
The business man must have the extra staff to handle the after sale services. A business man
must recruit the dedicated staff to handle the problems of the customers effectively. It is the
best way to compete with the competitors that is to have the best customer service. To have
the great relationship with the customers, the business man must have to improvise the
customer services. There should be special team to tackle the problem of the customer.
Introduce multicultural programs
This is about adding a multilingual component to the marketing program of the business
organization. For instance, the business men should provide the offer of translation of
language on their websites of the organization. A business man should always go for
broadcast media to cover the niche markets. People will only appreciate the effort of the
marketing when it is in their language. The bilingual customer service is the best service to
sustain the relationship with minority groups also.
Formal communication plan
Understand the challenge of communication

The plan starts with the understanding the challenges of communication. First step under this
is to understand the actual mission of the organization properly. Below are the questions
which an organization must know to face the challenge of communication:
 What is the main objective of the organization?
 Which are the types of problems organization can resolve?
 What value does an organization provide?
At this stage a business man gets to know about the people who are actually following the
provided path and focussing on the main objective of the organization.
Describe the main objectives
Under this step a business man should establish the objectives behind the communication
plan. The business man must have the idea regarding the below questions:
 What are the ways to promote the work of the organization to get more business?
 What are the ways to encourage the involvement from the community?
 Who are the ones which the organization actually targets?
The business man should try not to focus on customers of every country at a time or else the
communication plan will get fail.
Audit the current communications
The business man should evaluate the current communications that how it has reached to the
stakeholder and investors (Statusnet, 2016). There are some questions which must be
answered by the owner of the organization:
 What are the communication tools?
 What messages does the organization share?
 Are the communication tools effective?
Back the plan with research

The business man should conduct a research in the industry and use the insights such as audit
of the feedback of the customers regarding products to design the plan perfectly.
Tailor the message
Here the business man can use the techniques which he/she has learned to improvise the
communication plan. Under this step first the target audience should be selected and then the
words which are to be used in the message should be selected and then the most effective tool
should be chosen (Statusnet, 2016).
Evaluate the plan
To evaluate the effectiveness of the plan the business man need to measure the success of the
plan and make a tracking process and implement it.