Few businesses, or people, can do everything by themselves. Therefore, a key element in marketing is building relationships. In particular, longterm interactions between buyers and sellers are important in explaining marketing behaviour and the development of markets. This section covers the role of communications, networks and institutions in establishing market relations. It also explains how marketing techniques can be used for beneficial effects on social relations , as well as negative ones. If marketing can encourage us to buy a Ferrari, it can also persuade us to drive it safely or resist the temptation to steal one.
Few businesses, or people, can do everything by themselves (see Marketing Contexts); therefore, a key element in marketing, indeed the key element, is building relationships. Increasingly companies realize that customers are their most important asset and view customer relationships as opportunities that need to be managed. The essential aim of relationship marketing strategies is of course value creation (see Marketing Contexts: Marketing values) for both parties through the formation and maintenance of relationships with external marketplace entities. The most important of these is usually with customers, but also with other stakeholders and partners that can influence and help companies marketing operations.
The relationship marketing approach has grown in popularity and attention significantly in the last decade, particularly since the seminal articles in the USA by Webster (1992) and Morgan...
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