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.