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The difference between relationship and traditional marketing may appear to be trivial. However, at its core lie major theoretical differences that have compounding effects when practiced in the real world. Before we can understand the advantages and disadvantages of relationship marketing we must understand the difference. Traditional Marketing: Traditional marketing is focused on getting the message out. The more people you display your message to the more people that will purchase your product. It is a number game that says something like 1% of all visitors will purchase your product. Relationship Marketing: Relationship marketing is more about building a customer relationship and encouraging consumers to have a higher purchase rate and more satisfaction with their products. Typically relationship marketing is geared towards long-term growth. Let us say that a business has just spent thousands of dollars on getting people through the door. Since the business has not thought about relationship marketing the visitors make one purchase and are never seen or heard from again. The business continues to spend excessive amounts of money in order to attract customers and has very little repeat business. Relationship marketing is about repeat business. Relationship marketing is a cost-effective method that seeks to retain visitors (Goldglantz, 2007). The advantage of relationship marketing is that it helps retain the successes the company has already achieved. For example, a high amount of visitors can be converted to a high amount of return visitors. These return visitors can be analyzed for characteristics and traits. The disadvantage is that relationship marketing that looks inward (to current customers) doesn’t attract new customers on a wide scale. The advantage of traditional marketing is that it casts its net wide like a fisherman hoping to draw as many customers as possible. The wider the net the more fish and more markets we can tap into. The disadvantage of traditional marketing is that most businesses cannot simply keep paying high advertising costs to maintain an appropriate customer flow. Relationship and traditional marketing can be best used when in conjunction. One taps new markets and draws in first-time visitors while the other retains them as long as possible. The better the relationship, the better the sales results (Hunter & Perreault, 2007). Thus companies should consider developing their marketing program so that it makes sales on the front end and the back end. Murad Ali is a three-time published author, a Ph.d candidate and a human resource professional. http://www.thenewbusinessworld.blogspot.com
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