Marketing Insights From a to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Needs to Know

Relationship marketing (RM) marks a significant para-
digm shift in marketing, a movement from thinking solely in
terms of competition and conflict toward thinking in terms of
mutual interdependence and cooperation.
It recognizes the im-
portance of various parties—suppliers, employees, distributors,
dealers, retailers—cooperating to deliver the best value to the tar-
get customers. Here are the main characteristics of relationship
marketing:
• It focuses on partners and customers rather than on the com-
pany’s products.
• It puts more emphasis on customer retention and growth
than on customer acquisition.
• It relies on cross-functional teams rather than on departmental-
level work.
• It relies more on listening and learning than on talking.
Relationship marketing calls for new practices within the 4Ps
(see box).
The shift toward relationship marketing does not mean 
that companies abandon transaction marketing altogether. Most
companies need to operate with a mixture of the transactional and