Managing Market Relationships

Sole reliance on traditional marketing practices can cost a lot of money for little gain. That's why establishing, developing, and maintaining market relationships with customers and other stakeholders is often hailed as an effective means to achieve a sustained competitive market advantage. Despite this, the benefits of relationship marketing remain uncertain, and efforts in this arena often fail. Managing Market Relationships explains what relationship marketing entails, how it is implemented, how it evolves, and how it is controlled. Building on research with colleagues, Adam Lindgreen argues that companies must add value - either through their products and services or through their relationships, networks, and interactions. Readers are introduced to the buyer-seller market exchange model that recognizes the importance of relationship marketing but argues that it should co-exist with traditional marketing. The book offers guidance on how to develop, involve, and evaluate management and employees in relationship-building market activities. To avoid the one-size-fits-all approach to relationships, that so often leads to the premature death of managers' efforts, a relationship management assessment tool is provided that helps companies to question, identify, and prioritize critical aspects of relationship marketing. This timely and comprehensively researched book is essential reading for researchers, those involved in the professional training and development of marketers, and higher level students and practitioners who will want to learn more about relationship marketing, relevant research methodologies and how to use sound managerial models and tools.