Relationship Marketing

The relationship between a market and a consumer is complex. Far from simply an exchange of services there is an often complex transaction of feeling, meaning and experience. How does the study of relationship marketing interpret this?

 

In this exciting new book the authors explore the factors of relationship marketing in its contemporary context, with the consumer in mind. From the experience of a football club supporter to experiences of gap year travel, to text messaging behaviour, and to using the library, the focus of this text is on the consumer perspective. From this angle, issues of relationship marketing, and its management, take on a new and exciting bearing.

 

Topics examined include: frameworks for analyzing the consumer experience; consumer communities; issues of customer loyalty; the impact of ICT on relationship marketing; and the creative consumer. Each chapter is supported by - or based on - an in-depth case study, many of which are drawn from the authors′ research.

Steve Baron is Professor of Marketing, and Director of the Centre for Experiential Consumption Studies at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is joint author of a book on Services Marketing (Third Edition, Palgrave, 2008), and also joint author of Relationship Marketing (SAGE, 2009). He has published work in many academic journals, including Journal of Service Research, Journal of Services Marketing, International Journal of Service Industry Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research and International Journal of Market Research. He is Deputy Editor of Journal of Customer Behaviour, and on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Journal of Services Marketing, Service Science, and Service Business: an International Journal. Dr. Tony Conway was a member of the team that held the national Marketing Education Group conference in 1992 and was joint editor of the proceedings. He has produced journal articles, textbook contributions and conference papers on public sector and general services marketing and he am on the Editorial and Review Boards for a number of academic journals. He is presently heavily involved in research into the role of relationship marketing within the Health Care and Higher Education Sectors. Gary Warnaby is a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Liverpool Management School in the UK. Drawing on a variety of academic disciplines, including social and cultural geography, architecture, sociology and public administration - as well as more traditional management sub-disciplines - his research interests include the marketing of places (in particular the marketing of towns and cities as retail destinations, the marketing and management of the urban experience, and the representation of places in marketing communications activities), town-centre management, and retailing more generally. Results of this research have been published in academic journals including Environment and Planning A, Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Cities, Local Economy, Area, Marketing Theory and the International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, as well as a variety of professional and trade publications.  He as a co-author of the recently-published Relationship Marketing: A Consumer Experience Perspective